


The Cinderella Promise

by yuniesan



Series: The Cinderella Promise [2]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Cinderella Elements, Cory Matthews freak outs, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Friends to Lovers, That one night in Vegas, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 05:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 64,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21386962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuniesan/pseuds/yuniesan
Summary: Riley Matthews went to Las Vegas for her best friend and her Uncle's joint Bachelor/Bachelorette party, but fearing that she would never find happiness she hides out in the hotel bar drinking away her sorrows. While there she meets a handsome stranger with a proposition that would change her life. Billionaire Businessman Lucas Friar went to Vegas for a business meeting, but after being denied the CEO position at his family's company, for being known as a player/heart-breaker, he comes up with a plan to win them over if only he finds the perfect "wife" to play the part. One year was all he asked for, once the clock strikes twelve on their one-year anniversary they would go their separate ways. But what happens with they start to fall for one another?
Relationships: Farkle Minkus/Isadora Smackle, Lucas Friar/Riley Matthews, Maya Hart/Josh Matthews, Topanga Lawrence-Matthews/Cory Matthews
Series: The Cinderella Promise [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542658
Kudos: 23





	1. How did we get here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slowly reposting my stories over from FF.net

Riley could feel the beat of her own heart in her head and she didn’t like it, she wasn’t the type to get drunk mainly because she never had time to go out and have fun. Yet for the first time in her adult life she was waking up with a hangover and she didn’t know what to do to get rid of it and she hated it. She knew that she was in her hotel room, and she was there because her best friend Maya and her Uncle Josh were getting married in a week and they wanted one last hurrah before the wedding in a joint bachelor and bachelorette party in Las Vegas. The trip was costing Riley money she didn’t have, her savings was taking a hit with the wedding and she knew that it would put a dent in her plans for another year. She loved her best friend and she was happy that she was the maid of honor but the money she was spending to make her best friend happy was causing her a lot of grief.

She opened her eyes and looked around the darkened room, the blackout curtains made it impossible to see anything and she didn’t want to knock the lamp over and have to pay for it. When she reached over towards the nightstand she noticed that it wasn’t where it had been when she checked into her room. There wasn’t a lamp on the table at all, she automatically thought the worse, had she broken the light? It would make it impossible to walk on the floor if she did but she had to go to the bathroom so she needed to find another way around. She started to roll over to the other side of the bed to get to the lamp there but she hit resistance, when all of a sudden she heard the soft sounds of someone next to her.

_Maybe it’s Maya_, she thought to herself but when she touched the arm she knew that it wasn’t her best friend the blonde beauty. The arm was toned and the hand was larger than her best friends small petite hand. _Oh god I brought some random guy into my bed last night_, she screamed in her head. The inner monologue in her head wasn’t making the situation any better, in fact she knew it was only making it worse. She knew she needed to get out of the room as fast as possible but she couldn’t see anything so she didn’t know where to go, she wasn’t even sure she was in her room.

The man groaned next to her and pulled her close to his body snuggling the side of her leg before his breathing evened out holding onto her. She didn’t know what to do and she had to use the bathroom as if her life depended on it. She laid down and the bed thinking that she could slowly work her way down to the edge of the mattress and replace her body with the pillow behind her head. She slowly worked her way down until his arm reached the bottom of her breasts, she knew she had to move quickly but the feel of his body next to her sent tingles throughout her body. No man had been with her since her last boyfriend betrayed her, but she wasn’t going to deal with whoever was next to her until she at least went to the bathroom before she embarrassed herself in front of a complete stranger.

As she slowly tried to move his hand off of her breast she realized her mistake as he pulled her close and started groping her. She did the only thing she could think of doing at that moment, she screamed.

* * *

Maya and Josh were celebrating in front of her and she was truly happy that her friend had found love after all the heartache she had gone through growing up. Riley was happy for Maya but in her heart she was also sad because Maya had gotten so much happiness and Riley couldn’t get out of her funk, ever since High School she was always doing too much for everyone else that she honestly forgot to stop and think about herself. She had gotten a full scholarship to one of the top schools in the country only to drop out freshman year because her mother had gotten sick and her father couldn’t keep up with his day job and the café that her family owned. Her brother Auggie was too young to help out at home and he was always with their mother whenever she went to an appointment, so Riley did was she always did she stopped her own life to help out, that was eight years ago and even though her mother had recovered Riley couldn’t get herself to focus on something for herself because she still worked for what she thought was best for her family.

Now she was in Las Vegas for her best friend’s bachelorette party and she couldn’t muster up happiness for her. Her last relationship ended in disaster and she hadn’t seen her ex since the relationship ended even though she knew that he didn’t want to let her got when they broke up, but he had gone too far and she didn’t want to remember the memory. She was convinced that the world didn’t want to give her a happy ending, or maybe she had been to helpful with everyone else that she didn’t know how to help herself.

“Whatever,” she said. Instead of standing around and bringing down the happy mood around her she walked off to the nearby bar and asked for shots of their strongest liquor.

“Liquid courage,” bartender said but she just glared at him before he walked away. She didn’t want to fake a smile for anyone she just wanted a drink.

She didn’t like to drink at all but she wanted to loosen up so that she could at least pretend to have a good time with everyone instead of feeling down about her own life.

* * *

The screaming next to him is what woke Lucas up, not the fact that he had been absently grabbing something he had thought was a pillow, but was actually someone’s breast. He groaned at the sound of whoever was screaming in his ear when his head was pounding. He knew that he had too much to drink the night before but his entire life was up in the air all because his father thought it would be funny to add a clause to his will that he wouldn’t be able to become the CEO of Friar International unless he got married before his 30th birthday, and even though that was three years away he had worked harder than anyone he knew to make sure the business didn’t flounder because of his father’s dealing. Now he had to deal with a board of directors who thought he was a playboy, thanks to his best friend Zay who had flaunted his many relationships in front of the board the day before. When Lucas’ last relationship had been over two years before but Zay’s ideal best friend was the guy in college who had dated three girls at one time, which only happened once and only because he made the plans as a bet.

Now the ear splitting shriek was making him wish that he was still that guy because he could have shut the woman up with a kiss but since he didn’t remember a lot about how they had gotten to where they were he couldn’t do that. Instead he reached for the light switch next to the end table and turned on the light to reveal a pretty brunette with chocolate brown eyes staring back at him. She had stopped screaming when the light switched on and started looking around the penthouse suite that he had asked for when he had set up the meeting in Las Vegas. He wanted a place away from the glow of the lights and the tallest of the hotels in the city had what he needed, and it was very private because even though he was trying to woo the board he also wanted to have some semblance of control over his life. Something that the brunette next to him didn’t know about and it unnerved him.

“I’m dressed,” she said looking him up and down.

He was shirtless he knew that, normally he slept in his boxers because he couldn’t stand the restriction of pajamas when he was asleep but he knew that he was still wearing his slacks under the sheets.

He sighed and looked up at the face of the beautiful woman in front of him, “Yes you are,” he said out loud but wished she wasn’t because it would mean that he would be able to explain why she was in his room. “Now can you explain to me why you were screaming, in my room, at seven in the morning.”

“Well you grabbed… um… you grabbed my boob and started groping and I didn’t know you and I usually don’t let guys grab me like that. I thought I was in my hotel room but my guess is that I’m not since I’ve never seen this room in my life and I pretty sure this isn’t even the same hotel,” she stopped and got up onto her feet. “Um I’m just going to um…” she walked off towards the bathroom and closed the door.

He heard the click of the lock and sighed to himself, he was in his room with someone he didn’t know, all he could remember was his friend talking to him about some ridiculous plan about finding a wife while they were in Vegas and getting married by the end of the weekend before flying back to New York for a business meeting that he had with the London and Paris offices about the solar farms he wanted to invest in.

* * *

“Lucas it’s a good idea, you can find a contract wife and I have a license to notarize the paperwork without it getting out to the press,” Zay said as they walked through the lobby of the hotel they were looking to invest in. His best friend was a lawyer for a firm in New York and knew the ins and outs of the laws they needed to use for the company.

“Zay, you’re insane,” he said trying to get away from his friend’s plan. “Let me just have some time to think, the deal for the hotel is finished and I have a meeting at seven in the morning on Monday so I would like at least one day off this week before I fall apart.”

“Okay but you have to think about it because if you got through this hurdle the company would be entirely yours and you wouldn’t have to worry about the board.”

“Zay I have the majority of the company share, I think that it’ll be okay, yes I want the company, I was the one who saved it from the disaster that my father and my uncle started but in the end I still have to contend with my Uncle who still wants control and right now I can’t deal with any of that if I don’t get to relax at least once,” he said trying to hold onto his anger. He hadn’t had a day off since he finished his MBA, he had gone to school for only four years but he had taken more credits than he should have and his days off were few and far between hence he once ended up scheduling three dates in one day but the girls hadn’t minded because they were all after one thing, his money.

“Sure go ahead, I’m going to go head back to my room, my flight is at three in the morning, I have some company luncheon tomorrow afternoon so I have to leave early. But seriously think about what I said.”

“Whatever man,” he said before turning towards the hotel bar and sitting down next to a woman looking to drown herself in hard liquor. The glass in front of her was still half full with brown liquid, but all he could notice was that her hands were too small for the glass but she sighed and took the drink and swallowed it in one gulp.

“Can I get another one please,” she said to the bartender but he ignored her. Lucas knew that she wasn’t drunk, but apparently she wanted to be.

“A penny for your thoughts?” he said without thinking about his own struggles.

She looked over at him and smiled, for a moment he thought he saw the stars in her eyes but stopped himself from telling her.

“Life sucks sometimes, I just want to forget for once,” she said to him before she sighed.

“I know what you mean,” he said as the bartender came over and filled her glass, he asked for the same. “Come let’s go find a table and you can tell me your problems and I’ll tell you mind. It’ll be therapeutic.”

“Just what I need,” she said and followed him. He wondered if she had ever heard of stranger danger the way she so easily walked away with him but it was Vegas and most girls he saw there were looking for a good time not to be reminded of their lives.

When they reached a nearby he motioned for her to sit in the booth and he slid in front of her. He couldn’t help but smile at her, she had looked adorable trying to drink something that she was clearly not used to.

“So what’s going on with you?” he said still questioning himself about why he was drawn towards this woman who he had just met.

“My best friend is getting married next week, and it just put my life into perspective,” she said looking down at her hands.

“Wouldn’t that be a happy occasion?”

“You would think, but in reality I always helped her, especially when she started dating her fiancé, I always thought she needed to be happy because her childhood wasn’t the best but in helping her, and helping when my mom got sick, I sort of lost myself. I feel like I don’t know who or what I want to be. My relationships all sucked, I haven’t had any luck falling for anyone and I really wish I would have gotten the chance to go back to school. I wanted to write for a living, but I also wanted to one-day work in an industry that I had a passion for.”

“Let me guess you never found out what your passion was and now you’re regretting everything because you sacrificed so much for so long,” he said with a sigh, he had wanted to become a veterinarian when he was little but as he grew up he had become fascinated with changing the world through his family’s company, but in the end that went to hell very quickly.

“Yeah, I don’t have a passion, and I want to go back to school and find it but I can’t leave my family, even though they don’t need me anymore.”

“Maybe it’s time you left your family,” he said thinking about how he was trying to save his family’s legacy while building his own by rebuilding the company from the ground up.

“I wish but my father is overprotective and there are days when I swear he would go into my apartment just to make sure I haven’t fled the country or something.”

Lucas laughed because he wished his parents had been like that, all he had was cold and distant parents growing up. His mother had died while he was in high school and his father died recently which made his will impossible to contest on the grounds of insanity.

“What’s your story?” she asked him.

“My father put a clause in his will before he died and it was only revealed to me a month ago, but he died two years ago. I feel like he’s trying to control my life because he didn’t have any control over his. But I love my job and the company my grandfather started and I’m determined to make it something great.”

“Can I ask… what was the clause?” she looked up at him and he knew that she was trying to find out if his life was worse than hers.

“I have to get married if I want to inherit the company.”

She laughed for the first time since they met and he couldn’t help but be fascinated by the joy in her eyes. “Oh my god, that’s so funny.”

“Yeah well if it was your life you wouldn’t think it was so funny.”

“True, but it isn’t my life,” she sighed as she stopped laughing.

“Then let’s drink to our crappy lives, and how other people interfere with our happiness.”

“Here, here,” she said.

* * *

He remembered that he had ordered the whole bottle of their best scotch and the two of them worked on the bottle throughout the night, the longer they drank the more incoherent the memories became. He couldn’t figure out what was happening, they hadn’t had sex that much was true but he couldn’t help but think that he was missing something very important. When the glint of a white gold wedding band on his hand pulled his memories out of his mind. He remembered the drunken deal that the two had made and how they were going to solve both of their problems in one quick move. They were going to get married. The door to the bathroom opened and she stepped out looking at him as if she had noticed the band on her finger. The band glittered along with a huge diamond ring to match.

“Um… did we get married last night?” she said, he could tell she was as shocked as he was about what was happening.

“I think we did but I can’t remember a lot of what happened.”


	2. Negotiations

Riley did the first thing she could, she ran back into the bathroom and closed the door. She was hyperventilating because she didn’t know what happened, or what she had done. She had no memory of anything that had happened the night before. The door opened and the green eyed Adonis stood in front of her, she looked at him and knew that her eyes were blotchy.

_Maybe he needed to use the bathroom_, she thought to herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand up. He surprised her when he kneeled down to face her.

“Everything is going to be fine,” he said.

“Yeah right, nothing is ever fine when it comes to my life,” she said with regret. “Everyone I know is in a relationship, they’re all finding someone but what do I get…. I get nothing, I don’t click with anyone and I go and get drunk during my best friend and my Uncle’s joint celebration because I can’t be happy for them at that moment.”

He sighs and lifts up her chin so that their eyes meet. “You’re not the only who had problems, remember that, you just need to do something for yourself for once.”

“I’m starting to remember that conversation,” she said as she took toilet paper to wipe her face. “You said your father wanted you to get married to inherit the company.”

“And you told me about everything you’ve sacrificed for your friends and family, we talked and although we can’t remember anything something we said pushed us together.”

“But a girl should remember her wedding day,” she said as the tears threatened to come back. “It’s supposed to be one of the most memorable days of her life, instead I got drunk and married the first person I meet. I don’t even know you.”

“We could get to know each other,” he said sighing. She looked up at him as though he had grown a third head. She couldn’t believe what he was suggesting.

“What are you getting at?” she said trying not to sound angry. “I don’t even know who you are, I don’t know your name, I don’t know anything about you except for the few distorted memories from last night.”

“Go sit in the room, let me wash up, we’ll order room service and we will figure all of this out, maybe jog our memories.”

She nodded and walked out of the room, she really wanted to change her clothes and take a shower but she didn’t even know what hotel she was in. Instead she grabbed the rob and waited until he finished before going back into the bathroom and turning on the shower. She needed something to do that she had control over and a shower would be it. The water was scorching hot but she didn’t care, she wanted to scrub off a layer of skin as a way to give herself the strength to talk to a guy she barely knew but married the night before.

As the water went over her skin she could feel the tension in her muscles but her head was still pounding from the hangover and the freak out she just had. She felt like crying because of it all but she couldn’t bring herself to do it because she knew that she would still have to face him.

A knock on the door broke her out of her thoughts, “I left some clothes for you on the bed, meet me out in the living room when you’re done,” he said from the other side of the door.

She could feel her heart pounding at the sound of his voice, she had a husband and it was a strange thought because she didn’t know if she even liked him. She didn’t know if he was an axe murderer, or a rapist, or if he collected cuddle bunnies figures. The last thought made her laugh because she thought it would be an adorable quirk for him.

* * *

Lucas stood in the living room trying to shake any other memory from the night before to come to light but he couldn’t. Yet the damage had been done, but it may have also freed him from the disaster that was his father’s will. He knew he had to talk to her about everything but he also needed to reintroduce himself. They both had memories of the night before, they were the early memories but it was still something, but for some reason he couldn’t remember her name and he knew she couldn’t remember his. He looked down at the ring and knew that it was a quality ring which meant he had brought it from one of the more expensive stores in the hotel. Yet nothing came back to him.

On the coffee table his laptop bag sat but he didn’t want to turn it on because if he had made the marriage a public affair it would be all over the internet. He was considered one of the most eligible bachelors, but he didn’t like the title, he didn’t like the attention that his name gave him but he dealt with it because he wanted to work with industry leaders and they liked the publicity he brought them. He called room service and asked for a few breakfast platters to be sent to his room while he waited for her to finish in the bathroom.

He noticed that there was a paper on the floor by the door when he went to open the door for room service. He realized that it was the marriage license, dated at midnight, Riley Matthews-Friar, she had hyphenated her name he thought it was the sweetest thing.

“Riley,” he whispered to himself, when a memory came to his mind, she had tripped and fallen on his lap after the wedding making the both of them laugh.

The door to the bedroom opened as she stood there in one of his shirts and a pair of sweatpants he had brought but hadn’t had the chance to wear. She looked small to him, and she was looking down at her bare feet, he noticed her toes were painted a dark pink color and he thought it was the most adorable thing that he had seen.

“Hey,” he said smiling at her.

“Hi,” she said her voice was high pitched but it also showed that she was trying to be comfortable with the situation.

“Hey,” he couldn’t help but smile at how they were talking.

“I’m trying to figure out how to do this… I guess I’ll just start with the easiest part, what’s your name?’

“My name is Lucas Friar,” he said. “And you’re Riley Matthews.”

“How did you know that? Do you remember last night?”

“No I found our marriage license, and you hyphenated your name,” he waited for her to say something but she didn’t. She looked stunned for a moment. “I got us some food. I didn’t know what you liked so I got a little of everything.”

“Can I see it?” she said pointing at the piece of paper in his hand. As though it held the secrets of the universe but in reality it was the truth of their night. He handed it over to her and waited for her to freak out but it didn’t happen instead she sighed. “I guess it’s real, this is my life.”

“Let’s eat and we can figure everything out as we go.”

* * *

They ate in silence, Riley didn’t know what to say her life had just taken a turn in a completely opposite direction from where it had been the night before. She watched him as he ate his food, bite by bite, almost as if he were directly ignoring her. Everyone she knew usually talked when they were eating so the silence was killing her but she didn’t want to say anything. The food tasted great but she couldn’t stomach a lot of it, her stomach hurt from everything she had drank the night before and she didn’t know what to eat that would help the burning in her stomach. After looking at the food with disgust Lucas pushed a plate of pancakes in front of her and smiled.

“Hangover food, try it,” he said before going back to his food.

Somehow he knew that she didn’t normally drink so much alcohol, _could it be a memory from last night?_ She wondered but didn’t say anything about it because the thought of trying to remember just make her head hurt more. The pancakes started helping her stomach and her headache slowly receded, if she had eaten the night before maybe this wouldn’t have been as bad but she couldn’t stomach anything because the airplane ride was the first one she had ever taken in her entire life and the whole ordeal just made her nervous.

Once they finished Lucas moved towards a nearby couch and sat down, she followed him because she knew they would have to talk about the mess they had created the night before. She sighed but walked towards the table, their phones were on the glass coffee table, the tell-tale blinking of the notifications telling her that her friends were worried.

“Should we check our messages?” she asked hoping he would say no but he nodded and handed her the phone. It felt like a weight in her hands as if the world was about to end and drag her into oblivion.

“You should check yours,” he said without mentioning his.

“Are you checking yours?”

Before he could answer his phone started ringing, as though it was an alarm of what was coming, she didn’t know this man, she didn’t know anything about him, but judging from where they were and the ring on her finger he was someone important. A memory from the night before creeped up in her mind, something about a clause in his father’s will and how he could lose everything if he didn’t get married.

“Dude,” the voice came out of the phone. Lucas put it on speaker but put his finger over her mouth to keep her quiet. “Is it true? Did you actually get married last night?”

“Zay how did you find out?” Lucas said looking as if his world was about to come tumbling to the ground. “It’s on the front page, there’s no picture of you and this mystery girl, all they know is that her name is Riley Matthews and that you got married in the chapel in the hotel.”

“Shit,” Lucas said as he put his hand over his face. “Listen Zay, call Iz and tell her to start doing damage control as soon as she can. For now, say no comment… And Zay, contain this because I don’t want the press at my door the minute I land in New York.”

“Gotcha,” the voice said before the line went dead.

“So,” she started trying to find a starting point to the conversation. “You’re from New York?”

He looked up at her stunned for a moment before smiling at her, “Not really, I was born and raised in Texas, I moved to New York when I was in middle school because my father wanted to move the company headquarters to the big city.”

“I’m from New York, but I don’t know who you are,” she started babbling and once she started she couldn’t stop herself. “Then again I don’t read a lot on current affairs because I get enough of that from my mother. She’s a lawyer and a shark one at that, and she’s always complaining about her cases and her clients and I just gave up keeping up with any affairs like that, usually I just stick to reading books and watching… um… well yeah.”

“Well at least that would make this easier,” he said sighing. “What should we do because at this point the only good thing about this is that the company is required to give me my father’s shares which would give me an eighty percent control over everything.”

“You would have to stay married for that to happen wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to force you into something you didn’t want to be a part of… Riley the memories I have from last night the ones that stand out the most right now are about how you hate that you haven’t had the chance to live your life. Maybe… just, maybe this is a blessing for you.”

“Yeah well, you haven’t met my father, he can be a little over dramatic when it comes to me,” she sighed thinking about the fact that her father might not fake a heart attack this time around. “He has these moments that if he’s not protecting me from anything and everything… well he would fake a heart attack but this time I’m pretty sure that he would have a real one and come back to haunt me for breaking his heart.”

Lucas laughed for the first time since they woke up and she couldn’t help but laugh with him, it made her feel as though a weight was lifting inside of her heart and she couldn’t help but feel something tugging at her heart.

“We should really deal with this head on,” he said once they had stopped laughing.

“At this point I’m down for anything that doesn’t involve me going back to the life I had,” she said even though she knew that she would regret leaving her family in the lurch but they had to learn to live without her for once in their lives.

“How about,” he started but looked at her before continuing. “One year?”

“One year, married?”

“Yes, I could get control of the company, we can get you anything your heart desires,” he said to her but the moment he said her hearts desires she thought about school, and about living away from her family. She would miss her bay window, and her bedroom but she wanted a life that didn’t have anything to do with her father’s whims or listening to her mother talk about her clients, her brother would have to finish college without her to help him each time he got into a fight with his girlfriend. It felt like freedom was knocking at her door.

“We need conditions, something to make this as binding as the marriage,” she heard him say over her thoughts.

“That sounds reasonable,” she smiled at him. The world was lifting itself off of her shoulders as they spoke and she would be helping him along the way. “A Cinderella Promise, you know how the carriage and everything turned back to a pumpkin and mice when the timer ran out.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” he smiled, she felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of his pearly white teeth.

_Get a grip Matthews_, she said to herself. “Yeah, so… what do we need to do?”

He got up and grabbed his bag, pulling out a legal pad and a pen and walked back towards her and sat down. “We need to make terms and agreements for this.”

She nodded and thought about what she was about to do but she didn’t want to turn back, she was already knee deep into whatever they were doing.

“Like, the marriage lasts until midnight one year from today,” she said as he wrote it on the paper.

“We have to live together,” he said to her, making her nod.

“No Affairs are allowed,” she said hoping that she wasn’t crossing the line.

“That’s reasonable, I haven’t had a relationship in nearly two years, and honestly no one interested me in the last two years so it’s okay with me.”

“The truth about how we got together can’t be revealed, I don’t want my mother trying to find a way to get me out of this.”

“Okay that’s reasonable, also you have to go to dinner parties and all kinds of functions. We might also have to host a few functions. Are you okay with that?”

She nodded she knew a few things about throwing parties because of her mother’s café so she wouldn’t have any problems there. “I want to go back to school, this is the only thing I’m asking for when this is over, and that’s enough money to go back to school and get my degree.”

“I would give you the world just for going through this insanity for me,” he said starling her, her heart skipped a beat for a moment because no one had ever put her first.

He hands her the paper and puts the pen on top, “I know if I sign this everything will be different for me, but for some reason that doesn’t scare me,” she said to him.

“This might be a good thing,” he smiled. “For the both of us.”

She nodded before signing the paper. It didn’t look so much like a marriage contract between two companies, for some reason it looked like vows, except for the time limit it felt like two people working together in a real relationship.

_What have I gotten myself into?_


	3. Damage Control

“Now that we’ve gone through the details what should we do next?” Riley asked trying to calm herself down. They were married and she didn’t know if it was a good thing or not, but in the end it was one change in her life after years of the same.

“We haven’t gone through every detail but that is going to have to wait,” he said looking down at their phones. “Right now we have to do some damage control.”

“Do I want to know what that means?”

“I have a very public image,” he sighed. “It comes with the territory, with my family name and everything, but I also know that if we don’t deal with every detail it’s going to blow up in our faces.”

“So what do we have to do?” she said wondering about the details and the only one that comes out as a glaring point was how they me. “Does this have something to do with how we got together?”

“Yes,” he looked at her and she felt herself being drawn to his green eyes. “We need a story and we have to stick to it.”

“Well we could tell them that we met in a bar,” she smiled thinking that their actual story would work. “They don’t need to know where but it’s a start. We started talking and from that moment forward we knew that we were going to be together.”

He looked up at her and smiled, “You want to tell them the truth, without telling them the truth.”

“Yes,” she nodded and smiled back at him. “It’s so normal, they don’t need the rest of the details.”

“I like the way you think, and it’s crazy enough to work,” he laughed and looked at her eyes. “Now we have to deal with the other part of this.”

“I have a feeling this has something to do with my family doesn’t it?”

“Yes ,” he said looking at her. She could feel her heart race just from their eyes meeting. “If your friends and family don’t believe that this is real it won’t work. Someone could say something to the press and everything would up in the air.”

She understood what he was saying but she couldn’t truly lie to her own family, but the thought of not having to do what they say was mixed in with that.

“The wedding shouldn’t be the first time you meet them ,” she said but he looked at her confused. “Sorry my best friend is getting married on Sunday and I have to be there of course because I’m the maid of honor.”

“You told me about this last night, I just didn’t know I would have to go until now,” he said to her.

“ Yeah, I mean I’m expected to be there, and if I know my family they would want you there too because they would want to know who you were. My best friend is marrying my Uncle, and I know that sounds weird but he’s only two years older than me so it’s not that weird.”

“Okay, but I think I should at least meet your parents before the wedding,” he said looking at his hands. She knew that this was a weird conversation. “We’ll set up a dinner, we can have it at their house or at the penthouse.”

“I can cook dinner, I mean you probably have a cook or something.”

“I don’t have a cook I’m rarely home because I usually work well into the night. I take my business very seriously.”

“I can tell, I can cook dinner since I have to live there.”

“That’s alright with me, I’ll make sure you have whatever you need. I do have a maid that comes in daily to clean the place so you’ll meet her, as well as my driver and the security team that works in the building.”

“Is that who you were talking to? Your security team is that Zay guy?”

“No that was my childhood friend, he’s a lawyer in New Yor k. His firm handles the contracts for the company, he’s still a junior associate at the firm but he’s hardworking and wants partner by the time he’s forty.”

“Oh, that’s impressive,” she said wondering about her own hopes and dreams but then she remembered that he had mentioned someone else in that conversation. “So… is um… is Iz your girlfriend because she’s going to need to know about our arrangements.”

“No Riley, I’m single I haven’t been in a relationship in a very long time. So don’t worry about that,” he said trying to reassure her. “Unless you have someone your waiting on back home but judging from how you were drinking yesterday I’m guessing that’s not the case.”

“No, ” she said looking at the very large diamond ring on her finger. “I had a boyfriend but that ended a while ago, and it’s not something I would like to relive.”

He just nodded. “Just so you know Iz, is actually Isadora Smackle, she’s my assistant although I don’t understand why because she’s a genius. She’s working on her doctorate right now and stays only because I pay her well.”

“Again impressive, you seem to like to surround yourself with the best you can find.”

“It helps with the work I do, the company goes into several industries from farming to renewable energy . Maybe there’s a place for even you there,” he said smiling at her. He was giving her an option to work for him or at least to try and find her passion at his company but Riley wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to take him up on that offer.

“I don’t know, for now let me just adjust to the fact that I’m married.”

“Sure,” he said smiling at her. She couldn’t help but smile back. “Why don’t you get started on those phone calls, and I’ll work on getting your stuff over here from the hotel you were staying at.”

She gave him all of the information for her hotel room, and  he made the call, she decided to walk over to the other side of the large penthouse to check her phone messages before she made the first call. As the phone powered up it started buzzing to life, message after message began to appear. Several calls from her parents, mostly her father, her brother, Maya, Josh, and Farkle all left voice messages and a million text messages. Her father’s text messages all said call me now, while her mother’s messages were simple asking for a call to see if she needed help getting out of the marriage. 

Maya and Josh’s messages started around the time they were supposed to be back in their hotel rooms checking to make sure that they didn’t leave anything before they left the next day. Some of the messages were incoherent, Riley guessed they were drunk at the time, then there were a string of early morning messages where the two of them realized, of course with messages from her father, that Riley had done something.

The last set of messages came from her other best friend Farkle, who kept asking her what she did and why did she do it. He repeatedly asked her to call him, before begging her to not do anything rash with the man she married. Riley found some of the messages a little strange because to her Farkle was always like a brother, but she sensed something else in his voice as he spoke in his messages. She really hoped that he didn’t like her, because she couldn’t see him that way, he was like a brother always there and helping her out.

“No time to dwell on that,” she said out loud before she dialed the first number.

“Riley,” Maya’s voice came over the phone. “Tell me you didn’t just do what you did because your father is going to freak out.”

Riley could hear her Uncle on the other side of the phone, “Is that Riley?”

“Tell Josh to calm down,” Riley said. “I’m planning a family dinner for when we get back to explain everything. Until then please just don’t freak out too much.”

“But Riles,” Maya said in her sweetest voice. “Honey, you just married a guy who is considered to be one of the richest men in the world, and a known womanizer.”

“Maya he hasn’t had a relationship for two years before me so I highly doubt the rumors,” Riley said regretting her words.

“Oh my god,” Maya squealed. “How long have you been with this guy and why haven’t I known about this.”

Riley knew that she needed to stop the questions because she didn’t have all of the answers just yet. “Listen Maya,” Riley sighed. “Peaches, dinner in his penthouse on Tuesday. Don’t be late,” Riley said rushing herself so she could get off the phone. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Fine,” Maya said.

“Bye Peaches,” she said hanging up the phone and looking down at the now blank screen. She knew that the next number she had to dial was her father’s but she didn’t want to do it.

_ Come on Riley, you can do this you’re a fighter a warrior _ , she thought to herself as she dialed the number. She put it on speaker because she didn’t want to have the phone next to her ear when he started shrieking on the other side.

The phone rang for less than a second before her father’s frantic voice came over the line, “Riley, is that you? Riley? Riley?”

“Yeah dad it’s me stop freaking out,” she said as Lucas sat down next to her.

“Did you really get married or is that another Riley Matthews that was being mentioned on the front page of the Lifestyles sections of the Times?” her father said. “Please tell me it’s someone else, my baby girl can’t be married she just can’t.”

Lucas looked at her almost as though her father had said something weird, for her it was normal but for him this was just the tip of the crazy her father can accomplish.

“Daddy… Daddy… You’re my daddy,” she said trying to find a way to tell her father that the Riley Matthews in the newspaper is her, except now there’s a Friar at the end of her name. 

“Riley what did you do?” her mother’s voice came out of her phone. 

“Topanga, I shouldn’t have let her go,” her father said.

Her parents were disappointed in her, all because she got married. “I can’t take this anymore,” Lucas said taking the phone away from Riley.

“Mr. and Mrs. Matthews,” he said. “You may not know me, my name is Lucas Friar, I’m your daughter’s husband, I feel like it’s in my capacity to say this but you shouldn’t talk to your daughter that way, she’s a smart, strong, young woman and she deserves that respect. Now I would like to invite you over for dinner this week so that we may get to know one another, but if  you’re going to treat your daughter as though she made a mistake that would  be on level with ending the world than I’m not sure I’m okay with that.”

Riley stood there in awe because he was defending her, the man barely knew her but he was defending her to her own parents. Not even her best friend had done that for her, well she had but not in this capacity. 

“I know who you are young man,” he mother’s voice said. “My firm works on many of your contracts. I know you’re an upstanding young man but my daughter doesn’t know you from dodge.”

“Mom,” Riley spoke up. She knew they needed to start this charade if they were going to be successful. “I know him well enough, and yes we did this last minute but it was our decision. Maybe one day we can have a real wedding, but for now this was my decision as much as it was his,” which was true considering she signed the paperwork. “I was afraid of telling you about any of this because I was afraid of how you were going to react,” that was also true but she wasn’t going to tell her mother the absolute truth about her relationship with Lucas.

“Okay Riley,” her mother said. “We’ll have dinner with you and your husband…. Cory stop dying over there.”

Riley wanted to laugh but stopped herself. “But my baby is leaving me…. Why is she leaving me?”

“Riley we will talk more when you get back,” her mother said before the line went dead. She made she that they were no longer on the phone before she looked back  at Lucas.

“Thank you for that,” she said.

“No problem,” he said smiling. “Now your mother, the shark lawyer, she works with my friend Zay.”

“Is this a problem?”

“I don’t know, I mean we’ve never kept secrets from one another, mainly because I hate scandals, but how would we be able to convince him about this. I mean he’s a talker, he likes to gossip sometimes.”

“We could just tell him the same things we’ve said to my parents, you know like yes we know it’s sudden but we like each other. That I surprised you last night, because trust me it was a surprise, and we decided to get married on a whim.”

“As long as no one mentions the amount of alcohol we drank,” he smiled at her. Somehow his smiles affected her, the butterflies in her stomach  were fluttering around. and she didn’t know why.

“Yeah, oh god the bartender, I forgot about him.”

“Don’t worry I will take care of him and everyone else, now let’s get ready for the trip home.”

“Sure I just need to make one more phone call,” she said looking down at her phone knowing that she needed to talk to Farkle.

“Alright, I’m going to take a shower, your stuff should be here soon so you can change in the other bathroom.”

She nodded and watched him walk away, an errant thought about him in the shower ran through he r mind, she remembered that he was shirtless when she had woken up, it could have been that they were going to do something but fell asleep before anything happened. The thought of what could have happened went through her mind but she also wanted to remember anything that would and had happened.

* * *

Lucas walked into the shower and decided on taking a cold shower, he had known the woman for less than a day and he could feel himself reacting to her without thinking. He even stood up to her parents who doubted their own daughter, and he knew that it was something that he would have to do but the look on her face as he did it, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to kiss her on the lips each time she gave him that look. 

He scrubbed his face trying to gain control of himself, he couldn’t believe that someone like her would get under his well-constructed wall . He couldn’t have a family, he didn’t want his kids to live the same life he had. A life where his parents hated each other but stayed married because of the connections they had given one another. Where his mother died and his father was in the next state fucking his assistant, not giving a damn about his child or his wife. His father didn’t remarry, of course he didn’t want another child either and made sure to have that taken care of almost immediately after Lucas was conceived. 

Now Riley was his wife and everything he had ever done to prevent that had come crashing down, all because of his father’s will. The man loved having control to the point where he pulled his son out of school in the middle of the year, away from the only friends and family that cared about him, and took him to New York only so that he could groom his heir into the family business. Lucas tried to hate the job his father wanted him to take, but after a while he realized that he had the charisma and raw power to run the business. He worked his ass off to get through school and graduate from an ivy league school by the time he was nineteen, and get his MBA by the time he was twenty-one. All the while he had fed into the notion that like his father he was a womanizer, only he wasn’t he didn’t have the time but Zay had loved the thought of his friend’s being that guy, Zay hadn’t known the story of Lucas’ parents and he wouldn’t tell him either.

When he got out of the shower his skin was cold to the touch, but he didn’t care he knew that he needed a level head to deal with everything that was coming. He quickly dressed in jeans and a cable - knit sweater for the flight to New York, his jacket was on the bed along with his overnight bag . He opened the door to tell Riley that he was ready and to see if she had changed, he noticed  her quickly, her back was turned to him but she had put on a long flowery dress and a pair of boots, he felt his body heat up in an instant. He didn’t understand how a single person had so much control over him, but he knew that he couldn’t kiss her because if he had a taste of her he wouldn’t be able to let go.

“Farkle, I don’t know why you’re freaking out. It’s my life,” she said to the phone next to her ear. Lucas wanted to know who this person was, his name wasn’t normal but he wanted to protect her like he had when she was on the phone with her parents. 

“Damn it Farkle I’m allowed to do what I want for crying out loud,” she threw her hands up in the air holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder. He liked watching her for some reason her whole body moved whenever she was going through emotions, she was like a hummingbird moving so quickly sometimes you couldn’t see what she was doing.

“No Farkle you have no right to say that, you don’t know anything about him he isn’t Charlie or Logan,” she said making Lucas stand at attention. He knew she had been in another relationship but he didn’t know what they  had done to her considering she was a nice person overall.

“Whatever,” she said before hanging up the phone. Lucas cleared his throat to let her know that he was in the room. He didn’t want her to know that he had overheard the conversation but he wanted to ask.

“The plane will take off in an hour,” he said trying to change the subject.

She looked down at the phone before saying anything. “I don’t have a plane ticket for that plane, I have mine, maybe I can change it so we can be on the same flight.”

“Riley that’s not a problem. I have a private plane, but I’ll make sure you get a full refund for your flight as well as your hotel room since you didn’t sleep there last night.”

“Oh,” she looked at him not knowing what to do. “I keep forgetting that you’re… well you know.”

“Rich,” he said smiling he thought it was sweet that she didn’t really know him like that. Almost like she knew a part of him that he didn’ t know existed, except he knew that it didn’t. He was still the same person he was when he married her, and it wouldn’t change. In one year he would let her go and let her live her life.


	4. Home, for now

They rode to the airstrip in the back of a limo, the two of them had to sneak out of the hotel through a side entrance to avoid the pr ess, they had camped out in front of the hotel and wouldn’t  leave. Riley had never thought that she was going to be riding a limo to a private airplane in all of her life. It was surreal, and then the nerves began to kick in. She didn’t like airplanes and now she was going to get into a small private one. Although he family traveled around when she was younger, she never got over the sickening feeling that something would go horribly wrong while the plane was in the air. She knew that planes were safe to travel in but it was still a fear that she hadn’t been able to let go of.

As the car pulled up to the small airport Riley was trying to psych herself out of her fear as she normally did whenever she was forced into a plane.

“Are you okay?” Lucas asked when he looked over at her. “You’re as white as a sheet.”

She took a deep breath before answering him, “Sorry I’m not very fond of airplanes.”

“I can distract you if you want,” he said smiling before taking her hand. The warmth of his palm had already distracted her, when she looked up at his face she felt herself getting lost in his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” she said quietly. “I have to get over it eventually, I just need to take deep breaths.”

She didn’t want to worry him because she didn’t want to be a burden on him, since he was already helping her get out of the life she had at home. He nodded and let go of her hand, and for a brief moment she felt sorry for the loss of his hand. The two walked up to the airplane quietly as their bags were stored inside. When she walked inside she was surprised at how big the small plane was, instead of standard seats, the plane had plush champagne gold couches with seatbelts. The floor was an off white carpet that looked so comfortable she wanted to take off her shoes just to feel the fibers underneath her feet. There was a bar in the back as well as two doors, she automatically knew one was the bathroom but didn’t know where the other lead to. An attendant came out from the front of the plane and handed her a glass of white wine and smiled at her before handing Lucas a bottle of sparkling water.

“Is it okay to drink? It’s so early,” she said looking down at the wine remembering how she got in this situation in the first place.

“It’s for your nerves, I thought it would help relax you. It’s not very alcoholic,” he said smiling at her. “Sit next to me that way if you get nervous I’ll be there for you.”

Riley nodded trying to smile but the nerves had shifted from the fear of flying to how her mind and body reacted to this man . She barely knew him but for some reason she was attracted to him, she knew that she couldn’t act on it because he just wanted a business relationship between the two of them so she tried to bottle up the feeling. She sat down in the seat next to him and near gulped down her wine as a way to distract herself from him. She made sure to put on her seatbelt  and stare at the empty cup but since she didn’t want to get drunk, even though he said it wasn’t a very alcoholic drink, she didn’t want to let her guard down near him.

She felt herself relax next to Lucas as he started to look at papers from his suitcase, she hadn’t even seen a suitcase when they were at the hotel but it was there next to him. The plane started moving and she could feel herself stiffen up, she didn’t like it at all it was like giving too much control of your life to someone flying a small metal contraption. She gripped the hand rest as the plane slowly started to rise and felt every bit of food she had eaten in her entire life rise in her throat.

“Riley let go of the hand rest,” Lucas said trying to pry her fingers from the seat. She shook her head at him because she was afraid that the moment she let go she would start falling apart. But he continued to pull her hands up and when he finally succeeded he looked her in the eyes and she was drowning in his green eyes. 

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said as she started hyperventilating.

“Yes you can,” he said smiling at her. “Don’t worry just look at me and forget where you are. Think about your happy place, where do you want to be?”

“I’ve always dreamt of going to Paris,” she said remembering the one dream she had since she was a child when a little boy had told her that one day they would meet in the city of love. She had only been four years old but it was also one of the only memories she remembered from before she was five. The reason she remembered was because she had gotten separated from her parents and he sat with her until they found her.

“Okay and what are you going to do there?”

“I don’t know, I never thought I would get to go,” she said. “I would like to visit museums, and walk around in the springtime right after a spring rain passes and everything smells like flowers.”

He smiled at her, “I could take you there one day,” he said. “I have an apartment there.”

“Really,” she said and he nodded. 

“See we’re up in the air now, and your still here.”

“Thank you Lucas,” she said as she let go of his hands.

* * *

Lucas watched Riley as she fell asleep next to her, throughout the ride he couldn’t help but watch her. She slept like the world didn’t matter and he thought it was sweet, every once and a while  she smiled and he felt his heart warm up.  He wanted to take her to Paris the moment she said she wanted to go but he knew he couldn’t, he knew he had to separate himself from those emotions, but she brought them out every time she said something, shared a part of herself. He wanted to protect her and set her free at the same time. He knew that she would consume him if he let her and when that happened there was no way to come back from it.

Instead he turned his mind back to his work and the latest set of contracts he had to read before he asked Zay for a final draft. He worked throughout their flight into New York, throwing himself into his work without hesitation. He did it to stop himself from looking at her, once the plane landed and she was jolted awake by the landing gear he pulled back and smiled at her.

“How long was I asleep?” she asked her voice was heavy as she woke up and he couldn’t help but feel a tug on his heart.

“A while, but at least you got to sleep a little considering the morning we had,” he said as he packed up his work. “Come on our ride should be outside.”

“Already,” she said surprised. He knew she wasn’t used to this kind of life but every time her eyes lit up made him smile. For once he was alright with letting down the walls, he couldn’t keep her but he could let her make him a better man.

They walked out into the cool spring night, the desert had been sweltering but the city was cooler and it made it easier to walk around in his clothes. The car was waiting near the airstrip for them, in the distance he could hear more cars approaching them. He nodded towards his driver and rushed Riley towards the car. She gasped as he pushed her in the back before closing the door and rushed to the other side. The press had figured out his flight schedule and he wasn’t ready to let Riley be a part of that life just yet.

“Keep your head down,” he told her as his driver pulled away. “The windows are tinted but the flash of the camera can easily capture almost anything with the right exposure.”

“How do you know that,” she said her voice muffled.

“You learn a lot when you’ve lived this life. Can you fit in between the seats?”

“I don’t know maybe if the front seat is pushed all the way forward,” she said and he got to work pushing the seat all the way to the front before pulling her down towards the floor.

“Sorry, I just don’t want your first moment in front of the press to be like this, they can take the simplest of things and turn it ugly.”

She nodded at him and kept quiet all the way through the city, once they entered the garage for his building and the doors closed he knew that they were okay. He opened the door and helped her out, worry that she wouldn’t be able to handle standing after being cramped up for so long.

“How are your legs?” he asked her once she stood in front of him.

“A little shaky but it’s alright for now. I have a question,” she said as they walked forward. It was early evening so the sun was still out but you wouldn’t be able to tell from where they were.

“Ask away,” he said as he led her towards the pent house’s private elevator.

“Is it possible, if we could stop by my place,” she said looking down at her hands. “Maybe a little later so I could pick up some stuff.”

He smiled at her because she asked him something that they should have done in the first place. “Riley, it’s more than fine, we should have gone their first if it was for the press following us. Make a list of what you need now so you would know what to grab and I’ll send someone to pack the rest later.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” he said as the elevator stopped at the top floor. “This is home, for us.”

“A private elevator, I’m guessing the top floor which means the view of the city must be incredible.”

“It is, but it’s better at night come on I’ll show you around.”

He walked her through the first floor, where the kitchen was through the living room, the study where he worked, and a library at was two stories tall . He watched her face light up when she saw all of the books he had although he knew he hadn’t read them all he was still proud of the library.

“This place is so beautiful,” she said to him but he laughed.

“Come on let me show you the rest.”

“But look at this library… It’s amazing.”

He laughed again as he walked out of the room and towards the stairs that lead to the bedrooms, she followed him looking around the apartment like it was a new toy that she couldn’t touch. He showed her where his room was, as well as the walk in closet, he knew that if they were going to make this work half of that closet belonged to her even if they didn’t sleep in the same bedroom.

“Seriously half this closet is empty,” she said as she looked at all of the space, he watched as she took in the space. “Lucas this is as big as my apartment.”

“Well the penthouse is the top two floors of the building so I pretty much did everything I wanted. There’s a game room downstairs and a small theater room.  Up here there’s four bedrooms including this one, you can pick whichever one you want to sleep in, but there’s one thing we have to discuss.”

“What? I thought we’ve talked about everything,” she said looking around.

“Well logistically you live in this room with me, but I wouldn’t force that on you but just in case I think your stuff should be in here.”

“That sounds reasonable, and if we have to stay in the same room… um I’m okay with that,” she said as she began to blush. “I mean your bed can hold six people so it wouldn’t be awkward at all and I know that we’re the only ones who know about this arrangement but to others we’re a married couple.”

He thought about what she was saying and remembered how Zay sometimes crashed in one of the rooms, or how the cleaning crew would find it strange if someone was sleeping in another bed. He didn’t know if he had it in him to break the rules they set up but he knew that they couldn’t let anyone know that this was a contract marriage either.

“If you’re okay with that then we’ll live  here in the same room but if you ever feel like you need to get away there’s plenty of other rooms to use,” he said as he tried not to feel like his life was being dragged into a world he didn’t want to be in. “Come on I had my security team create a distraction so that we could get away very easily.”

* * *

The distraction was a helicopter flying off of the roof of the building, Riley watched it go as they walked back down towards the elevators. She had said that stuff about them sleeping in the same bed on a whim but hadn’t realized just how much damage it was going to do. They had to share a room it was normal as a married couple but she also knew that if someone noticed that they slept in separate rooms her freedom from her old life would be in jeopardy and she really wanted a chance at living.

She still couldn’t get over the penthouse, she had thought that he would have a modern sad looking place, but the entire apartment was furnished in warm colors and wood. With bits of modern styles here and there. It was incredible to look at, and the library he had was something to be amazed at. She had always loved getting lost in a book because she didn’t  have the chance to finish school, her life was at a standstill but a book let her getaway even if it was just for a  short while. Now she had endless amounts of books to read and all of the time in the world to do so. It seemed so surreal that her life had changed so quickly only because she married a complete stranger.

The trip to her apartment was short, she lived above her mother’s café, where she worked every day, and it was close to where Lucas’ place was. In the heart of the city, forty blocks were nothing when you could drive, and Lucas’ car was fast.  _ One the best for him _ she said to herself. She wondered if he would share, or even teach her to drive the car. She never had the chance to learn but in a car like the one they were in she wouldn’t mind learning.

When they pulled up in front of the café, it was open and students milled around drinking coffee and eating Russian pastries . She could see her mother and father working inside, most likely picking up her shift. She wasn’t supposed to be back until later on that day so she had to sneak around to her place without them noticing.

“This is where you work?” Lucas asked as she tried to make a plan in her head.

“Yeah, my mom owns the place and I usually work the morning shift, and every Sunday I work all day because I have Tuesdays off. I save up every penny I can because I wanted to go back to school, but I ended spending everyday behind that counter working without a future in sight.”

“I’m going to help you with your future, all you have to do is take it by the hand and keep going. Now let’s go get your stuff before anyone realizes that you’re here, or notices the really expensive car out front.”

She nodded and pulled him towards the side entrance that led to her apartment above the café, she was trying to move as slowly as possible because she didn’t want to make too much noise. She went to her bedroom as Lucas looked around the apartment.

“It looks like you,” he said as she pulled out the only suitcase she owned. She brought it to go to college eight years ago but never used it. 

“What do you mean?” she said as she put the suitcase on top of her bed and opened it staring at the emptiness inside. So many dreams, so many years, and nothing it sat there waiting, and now she was finally going on an adventure all her own.

“It’s colorful, but not too loud, like you,” he smiled. In less than twenty-four hours he had understood her like no one else had. 

“Well I’ve been stuck for so long I figured that since my place was my only escape I might as well make it my own. I’m going to have to find a place like that at the penthouse,” she sighed thinking about how she had to rebuild a safe space.

“You can have the library since you loved it so much when you saw it, the shelves don’t move but the whole place can be redone.”

“Really,” she said smiling so bright it was hard to contain her excitement that she started bouncing up and down. The library for her, she could read all she wanted, even enroll i n some courses for the fall, while helping him.

“Yes really,” he smiled before he started helping her fold her clothes into the suitcase. “Where’s your underwear?”

“Oh right,” she said trying to hide the blush that was creeping up her neck and onto her face. “I’ll put that in a dufflebag… um… yeah.”

He laughed, “If you don’t want me seeing them right now it’s okay, I’ll take this to the car and you can pack them.”

She nodded and finished putting everything in the suitcase before closing it, when he walked away she grabbed her carryon luggage and started putting her underwear inside. They were the only things she brought that were revealing at all, her secret life was what Maya had called it. Riley had to dress down because working in the café sometime ended with her covered in something but her underwear and her nighties were all silk and lace. She heard someone walking towards her room as she put the last of them in the bag.

“Lucas I’m almost done I have to find a couple of pairs of shoes,” she yelled as she went into her closet and dug around on the floor looking for her favorite converse shoes and the only high heels she owned.

“Riley?” her father’s voice startled her and made her bang her head against one of the low shelves she had in her closet.

“Daddy,” she squeaked rubbing her head. They had been so quiet how did he find her.

“I saw that Lucas guy dragging a suitcase towards a really fancy car outside and thought I was seeing things,” he said walking towards her. “Riley are you in trouble? Do I have to do something?”

“I’m not in trouble I’m just getting my stuff,” she said her head started throbbing.

“Topanga,” her father yelled just as her mother walked in through the door, her younger brother Auggie not far behind her. “Your daughter was trying to run away without us knowing.”

“Dad, I’m an adult you have to learn to let go,” she said not knowing what to do.

“And let you go off with that playboy heathen, let me think about it…. No,” he said standing in front of her. “Riley you don’t know this guy why are you so desperate to stay with him.”

“Dad, she’s old enough to make her own decisions,” Auggie said standing up for her, she needed to make sure that her brother got a huge present for his birthday.

“Even if it’s a mistake,” her father answered. Her mother said nothing at all, and Riley knew that she was watching the conversation like a lawyer, gathering information and it scared her because she didn’t want her mother figuring out the truth.

“Dad, let me tell you what I told Maya when I talked to her this morning,” she said taking a deep breath. “Lucas hasn’t been with anyone before me, for two years he was single working hard. He has a job and a degree, why are you so bothered by this?”

Her mother stepped forward and took her husband’s arm, “She’s right Cory, I’ve worked with him on occasion, he’s a very hard working person.”

“And I will do anything in my power to make sure that Riley gets everything she’s ever wanted,” Lucas said from the doorway to her bedroom. “ Hello Mrs. Matthews, I didn’t know you were Riley’s mother when we met but it is a pleasure to have made your acquaintance for as long as I have. You raised a very smart and beautiful woman.”

Her mother smiled, “Thank you Lucas, now here’s my warning to you, if you hurt my daughter in any way I will make sure that you suffer for it. You hear me?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. 

“See Cory, I have this handled, and since Riley is technically on her honeymoon I think we should leave them alone,” her mother started ushering everyone out of the room before turning back to her. “Riley, I’m glad you’re finally trying to live your life. I’ve been waiting for this moment and I know this is going to be hard to hear right now but I have to say this. You’re fired.”

“But Topanga how is she supposed to take care of herself if she doesn’t have a job,” her father said as her mother pulled him out of the room. 

“She has a way, now Cory let’s have a talk about the fact that your daughter is now a married woman so that means you can’t keep her locked up like she’s a fairy tale princess.”

When they were gone Riley sighed and sat down on her bed, Lucas looked at her and smiled slightly. “Your parents are scary people,” he said before picking up her bags and walking out of the apartment.

_ Yeah my parents are scary _ , she thought to herself thinking that they were finally letting her go. It felt bittersweet especially when the words her mother had said rang throughout her head. Her mother had been waiting for her to finally let go,  _ why hadn’t she said anything before? _ The answer was easy, her father who was so attached to his daughter that he would  try to intimidate Lucas. 

She grabbed her purse and grabbed her favorite stuffed animal along with her favorite pillow before walking out of the room. Her new life waited downstairs and she was ready to grab it. As she walked out of her apartment and closed the door she sighed, because it was like letting go of an old friend.

“You know he’s just going to break your heart,” Farkle’s voice said startling her making her drop her things on the floor.

“Farkle why are you hiding there?”

“Because you weren’t listening when I talked to you earlier, because you’re being reckless with your own life, just like how Logan took all of your savings, and how Charlie….”

“Farkle I love you like a brother but I’m not opposed to slapping the shit out of you right now,” she said stopping him before he reminded her of what her ex-boyfriends had done to her in the past. “Lucas is not like them, you would know that if you would just take your head out of your ass and get to know the guy.”

“That’s not going to happen Riley, geez how can you be so blind. You’re just a meaningless fling to him and he’s going to leave you alone and of course I’m going to have to pick up the pieces like always.”

Riley felt as though he had slapped her, he had comforted her before yes but she never let anyone take responsibility for anything. “Farkle, seriously you never helped until you found me alone and crying, you’re trying to make this into something it isn’t and in the end it’s going to hurt us both. I get it you like me, you always said you loved me and Maya the same but I know that after Maya and Josh got together you thought that I would go along with you but I can’t, I’m sorry but I don’t see you that way.”

He put his arms on her face and tried to kiss her but she pulled back, “Seriously Riley,” he said trying not to look defeated.

“Farkle I love you, but to me your family I can’t see you like that. I’m sorry,” she said looking down at her hands.

“I know I guess it was just wishful thinking on my part, everyone used to say that we’d end up together because we were two of a kind.”

“Except it just meant that we were as close as siblings , Maya and I had talked about it a long time ago, how we’re all one dysfunctional family, we stitched ourselves into it and we protected each other. That’s why you’re acting like this, it’s been that way since we were kids.”

He slid down the wall and looked at his hands, “Yeah who’s going to love a weirdo like me?”

“Someone will, hey maybe I can hook you up with someone during the family dinner on Tuesday?” Riley said thinking about Lucas’ assistant Isadora, he had said the she was a genius maybe she was Farkle’s other half.  _ It’s worth a shot _ , she thought to herself.

“Okay, and Riley.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for talking to me about this, I’ve been a little blinded for a while because I don’t really understand emotion very well. I could have just confused everything.”

“Hey that’s what friends are for,” she said hugging him. She saw Lucas walking up the stairs towards her. She had been gone for a while so he must have wondered what was keeping her. “Hey Farkle you wanna meet my husband? You might make a friend that isn’t a girl.”

“Sure,” he said smiling as he stood up. 

Lucas joined them and held out his hand. “My name is Lucas,” he said smiling.

“Yeah yeah pretty boy, I’m Farkle Minkus, I’m Riley’s best guy friend.”

“Did you say Minkus,” Lucas said, Riley knew that he was going to pull Farkle into something business related. She had known the guy for a day and for some reason she already understood him. “Are you related to the Minkus, from Minkus International?”

“Yeah that’s my father’s company, although I would rather build my own empire,” Farkle said taking Lucas’ outstretched hand. “I hear you’re breaking into renewable energy. Would you mind if I set up meeting with you to run through some plans I have that you may want to invest in?”

“Sure,” he said. At that moment Riley knew that Farkle had already made a friend in a guy he had met just a few minutes before.

* * *

When Riley hadn’t come downstairs Lucas had worried that her father had gone back to the apartment and locked her inside so he went upstairs and saw her with a blonde hair blue eyed man. The two of them had been arguing about her marriage, it wasn’t until Lucas heard the part about her ex that his blood began to boil. He knew that the guy she was talking to had feelings for her, or he wouldn’t have argued so passionately, but the look from Riley’s eyes said a different story. Lucas didn’t want to interrupt them because he knew that she had to do these things so that she would become a stronger woman so instead he listened to them talk.

His first reaction to the story about her two ex-boyfriends was that he wanted to find them and kill them, it was no wonder that Riley had been stuck where she was. He also wanted to know what this Charlie person had done to her because it was a big deal. Lucas knew that they needed to have a conversation about her past because if the press got a hold of it they would milk it for all that it’s worth but he hadn’t wanted to have that conversation just yet. 

When he looked back up he saw the guy trying to kiss his wife and he almost lost it, his emotions were all over the place and he hadn’t known how she had gotten under his skin so fast. Twenty-four hours and he was turning into a real husband. Lucas decided to leave and let them have their moment but instead he found himself walking upstairs ready to stake his claim on his wife. Riley had taken control of the situation and now he was being introduced to someone who knew everything about her.

“Farkle why don’t you have your office call mine, or we can talk about it during dinner on Tuesday and we can see if it’s something we can work on together,” Lucas said. The thought of working on a renewable energy project for his business was huge, he wanted to steer the company in that direction because the amount of contracts he was getting from those who wanted renewable energy was growing.

“Alright, I’ll get a packet together with all of the information and bring it on Tuesday, we’ll set up an appointment after that if you’re interested,” Farkle said as his emotions changed from what he was feeling when he was talking to Riley, he almost seemed excited.

“See you later Farkle,” Riley said pulling Lucas back downstairs. She was smiling as they walked towards the car and once they were inside and she looked at him  her smile was so bright that he couldn’t help but smile back. “Thank you.”

“For what not beating your friend up for trying to force himself on you? Because I would if you wanted me to,” he said to her as he drove them back to the penthouse.

“No you don’t have to do that, I was thank you for helping him. He doesn’t want to be a part of his father’s company, well not yet anyway, he wants to build up a reputation on his own but it’s difficult because of his family name. You’re giving him a chance to make a name for himself, and he’s really hard working so in the end you might like his work ethic.”

“I hope I will, plus I need a good contractor for renewable energy and one with the resources to change the market, he seems like a good fit considering how quickly he opened up to the opportunity to sell his product.”

“Well he is genius, he graduated from Columbia when he was fourteen but because our parents knew each other we’ve been friends since we were in diapers.  He’s a good guy but because of who he is it’s hard for him to be in relationships outside of the one he has with me and Maya.”

“And you want to hook him up with some?” Lucas said smiling at her. “Sorry I heard that part.”

“I was actually thinking that maybe your assistant might be a good fit for him, unless she’s with someone, I haven’t met her and of course the first thing I want to do is pair her off…”

“Riley it’s okay, and no I don’t think Iz is with anyone right now she’s not very sociable, but she gets everything done so I don’t complain.”

Lucas could almost see the gears in Riley’s head working as she started making plans for the two geniuses. But for him he was thinking about what they needed to talk about, on the way home they stopped by the supermarket to pick up some groceries before getting back to their place. It was weird it had been his place for so long and now he was sharing it. When they got there he put her stuff inside the closet as she worked on starting dinner.

“Lucas,” she called out to him as he walked downstairs. “Is there anything you would like to eat? I’m good at almost anything.”

“Well the only thing I’ve wanted to eat in a long time was my mother’s chicken fried steak but I don’t know how she made it.”

“Why don’t we ask her?”

“We can’t she died a long time ago,” remembering his mother was always the hardest thing, she had been a caring mother but she couldn’t understand why her husband didn’t like her. After a few years they used each other because of their connections and she had become a different person. It wasn’t until Lucas got to know his father that he understood that the man only married her because she was giving him an heir and his family approved. Every memory after that was tarnished, his mother stopped being the nice caring person she had been, his father had used everything he could to get ahead in the company.

Riley was standing next to him looking at his eyes, “Lucas, you zoned out there are you okay?”

“Yeah I was just remembering some bad stuff,” he said trying to divert the attention from what he was thinking about. “Anyway we have to talk, at least before you start cooking.”

“Sure what do you need to talk about?”

“I need to know about your past relationships,” he said almost like ripping a Band-Aid. “I know  it sounds a little intrusive but since my life has been in the public eye for years they already know almost everything, but once they find out about you they will dig up everything they can even bring your exes into the picture.”

“Oh,” she said as she walked over to a chair and sat down, he saw the defeated look in her face. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

“Is there something you don’t want me to know?”

“I just wish that it would all just go away but I guess it won’t,” she took a deep breath and looked at him. He could see pain in her eyes and it scared him. “Um let me start with Logan he’s easier to talk about even though he was a jerk, we dated for six months he was nice to me, he proposed on our six-month anniversary and I said yes because he was always nice to me, but it turned out that he was a part of this scam that lured women in and then cleaned out their life savings.”

Lucas felt anger boiling his blood at the fact that someone would take advantage of her, he needed to have Zay look this guy up and find a way to take him to court for this.

“How long ago was this?” Lucas asked trying to get all of the fact before doing anything.

“With Logan it was about eighteen months ago, I was supposed to start school that fall and when I couldn’t pay I dropped out.”

Now he understood, and knowing her she didn’t tell her parents about it. Her mother would have fixed it but Riley had wanted to handle it on her own.

“Any other relationships?”

“Yeah my ex from high school,” she said looking at her hands. “We dated for about five and a half years, starting from junior year in high school.”

“Why aren’t you together anymore?”

“Well it started off slow, I didn’t realize it was happening but anyway it started off with these comments he used to make about how we were made for each other and that there was no one out there for him other than me. At first I thought it was sweet but as time went by especially after Maya went to college and I started helping my mother when she got sick, well he kept saying it and then he started saying other things usually about my weight or about how I looked. When he would drink he would get violent and constantly tell me that I would stay with him until we died and it started freaking me out. ”

“Did he ever hit you?” Lucas said trying to keep his voice even.

“Once, he hit me as I was trying to walk away from one of his tantrums, I was at the top of the stairs that led to my apartment and ended up falling down after he punched me in the face. When we were at the hospital he tried to tell the nurses that I fell because I was clumsy but I understood that he was just trying to make it seem harmless. When they came in,” Riley’s voice had gotten smaller as she told the story and Lucas took her hands so that she would know he was there. “Well when they came in I yelled that I never wanted to see him again, the police were there because the hospital staff had seen my face and called them. Charlie tried to tell me that I was being hysterical but I threw pillow at him and told him to get out. He was arrested for assault and ordered into a program. I have a restraining order on him that I renew every year.”

Lucas watched as she started to cry, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her until she stopped. They were quiet for a moment as she looked into his eyes, in his mind all he wanted to do was to find these guys and kill them but Riley had this effect on him that kept him centered. She had survived both guys and now here she was in this contract and it made him feel like scum.

“Let me get started on dinner,” she said pulling away. 

“Riley you’re a strong person, and I’m sorry about the situation that we’re in right now but I want to let you know one thing,” he said looking into her brown eyes. “I’m not those guys I won’t hurt you and I won’t get in your way if you want to leave and do something else.”

“I know that Lucas, but I’m not leaving, we made a deal and I would like to keep it.  Plus, I knew you were nothing like my exes the minute you stood up to my parents, no one not even my friends have ever done that for me. They all want to protect me like I’m some breakable object when I’m not.”

“No you’re a fighter and the more I get to know about you the more I like,” he said as he watched her smile. “Now I have to go work on some contracts for tomorrow so call me when you’re finished.”

“Okay,” she said as she walked away. He couldn’t help but watch her, she was a strong person and he wouldn’t mind getting to know her more. 


	5. The First Night

Riley started cooking, since Lucas said he wanted his mom’s chicken fried steak she decided that she wanted to try to make it. Although she had made it before she wasn’t sure if her own recipe was going to be the same,  _ but maybe making it would make him happy _ , she thought as she started  on the meal. She heard the front door open and close, she wondered if Lucas went out for a minute until she heard a voice calling out.

“Dude are you cooking,” someone said as the voice got closer to the kitchen. “I remember the last time you cooked the house almost burned to the ground so just do yourself a favor and… Oh my god you’re not Lucas.”

“No I’m not, but I will tell him that you don’t think he can cook,” she said with a smile. “I’m Riley.”

“Well damn sugar I never thought that I would meet you,” he said taking her hand and shaking it. “I’m Is aiah, but you can call me Zay.”

“Hi Zay,” she said looking at the lawyer in front of her. He wasn’t as tall as Lucas but he was handsome, his hair was buzzed and his smile was sweet. Yet she didn’t feel the same electricity she had whenever she was with Lucas. 

“So where’s Lucas?”

“He’s in his office, he said something about contracts,” she smiled at him. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“I was actually going to crash here tonight, I’m the one working on those contracts and I need to hand them in tomorrow morning before the final meeting.”

“I’ll make extra, it should be ready in about an hour so go talk to Lucas and keep him busy so he doesn’t distract me.”

He smiled at her and nodded as he walked away. Riley didn’t think anything about it and just started making dinner.

Lucas looked at the contracts for the seventh time since he  left Riley, all he could think about was finding the two guys who had done her wrong and punching them until they bleed. He couldn’t understand why he was so keen on  saving her. A woman he barely knew but somehow she brought out every emotion he normally bottled inside, while calming him before he did or said anything.

“Lucas,” Zay said as he walked in through the office doors. “I never thought that you would keep the wife, what happened? Are you hiding something from me?”

Lucas knew that since Riley had told her family the story he needed to do the same, he was better at lying than she was so stretching the truth would be easy. “Sorry man, I should have told you.  Hell I should have told you that I ditched you to go have drinks with her and when I told her about your idea she said that she was alright with it.”

“You’ve been hiding things from me,” Zay said acting shocked. “Is that why you didn’t want to go out with that leggy blonde the other day.”

The reason why Lucas hadn’t gone out with the blonde was because he was at the point in his life where meaningless relationships were useless, and also blondes weren’t his type, although they were Zay’s type. 

“I didn’t go out with her because I was already with someone. We just wanted to keep it quiet and we’re going to continue to keep it quiet, this relationship was new and now we’ve gone and complicated it with marriage, I’m trying not to scare her off.”

“Well she’s out there cooking dinner and you eat way too much take out so I’m hoping she’s going to be a good influence on you,” he said, Lucas couldn’t help but think of Riley cooking something in an apron. She was cute and sexy at the same time so the apron would be more of a fantasy, her in it and nothing else. “You’re heads in the gutter, I can tell.”

“ Yeah whatever,” he said sliding over the contracts, he had made notes on the plane and looked through them several times since but the moment he had that conversation with Riley  his mind wasn’t on work.

“Dude you wrote a million things on these, I thought you would be having a fun night with your bride instead you worked? Man what’s wrong with you.”

“Zay, you maroon I worked on the contracts on the plane, Riley was asleep the whole time and I needed something to do,” he said wanting to throw something at his friend then it hit him. “Oh and by the way don’t piss off her mother please I don’t want to have to deal with the ramifications of that.”

“How could I piss off her mother, I don’t even know the woman, hell I don’t even know your wife and we’ve been friends since we were kids.”

“Her mother is your boss, Topanga Matthews,” Lucas said watching his best friend’s horrified expression.

“My boss the shark, is the…the mother of your wife, but Riley looks as sweet as they come and her mother is a scary scary woman,” he said trying to find a way to make everything better. “I don’t want to be fired, help me not piss the woman off.”

“Don’t worry Zay,” Lucas said trying not to laugh at his friend’s horrified face. “Riley’s the sweetest person, and she won’t bad mouth you to her mother. Anyway I need you to give me the name of that P.I. that we used last year to look up my father’s widow.”

“Why?”

“Riley and I have only been together for a short time, but we decided to confess somethings to each other today after we went to get her stuff from her apartment. Anyway she told me about her exes and I want to have them checked out because they did her wrong man and I don’t want them coming back after her because she’s married to me.”

“You’re worried for her,” Zay said smiling at him. “You want to protect her, man if I had known that she would have calmed you to this point  I would have found her myself and locked you in a room together.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever, I’ll give you their information tomorrow afternoon.”

“Alright man, I’ll do that and meet you in the office around one tomorrow, but I am crashing here tonight  because your wife…” he laughed. “Your wife is cooking dinner and asked me if I was staying.”

Lucas wanted to hit him over the head with the papers but instead went back to work, “Just read over the notes please and tell me if there’s anything there that I should look it over again.”

“Alright,” Zay said and the two of them started working on the paper work. They reworded some parts and drafted a new contra ct together, an hour passed when Lucas started noticing the smell of food wafting towards the office. 

“Man, I’m hungry and the smell of that food is only making it worse,” Zay said breaking Lucas’ concentration. “I wonder if she’s done?”

“Don’t hit on my wife Zay,” Lucas said keeping his eyes on his papers. “Or I will deck you so hard you’ll end up back in Texas.”

“No I don’t want anything to do with your wife… Only her food, because it smells damn good right now. I don’t think I’ve ever smelled something so good.”

Lucas hadn’t either, no one had ever cooked for him other than the staff, his mother tried a few times but it was always chicken fried steak and sometimes it was a bad mess. He mentioned it  because as bad as it had tasted when his mother had cooked it, it was still the only good memory he had of her that wasn’t tarnished by his father. He was so busy remembering the past that he hadn’t noticed that Zay had left the room.

“Damn it,” Lucas said getting up to follow. 

When he walked up to the living room and saw the table had been set for three and Zay was already salivating over the food, Lucas couldn’t help but laugh. When Riley walked in from the kitchen she was wearing a simple white apron, but the fantasy that had slowly creeped up on him early had come back in full force. Her face was partly covered in flour and her eyes were  bright, but all he felt was lust for the woman he married. He realized that they would be sleeping in the same bed that night and he didn’t know if he would be able to keep his hands off of her.

“Hey Lucas,” she said when she noticed him. “I made chicken fried steak, it might not be as good as what your mother made but I hope you like it.”

He couldn’t help but smile, she had made the only meal that made it feel like home just because he had asked for it. 

“Riley can I pay for you to cook my lunch from now on because this tastes amazing,” Zay said his mouth full of food. “It tastes like how my grandmother made it, bless that woman’s soul, but man I miss her.”

“Who taught you to cook?” Lucas asked as he joined them at the table. 

“Nobody,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I used to cook here and there when I was growing up but when my mom got sick I started cooking every day.”

“People would pay for something that tastes this good, trust me Riley,” Zay said as he ate the southern cooking. Lucas wondered what else she could cook.

“I’ll make lunch for you both and bring it to the office tomorrow, that way I can meet your assistant,” she said smiling. Lucas knew that she wanted to find a way to get Isadora with her friend Farkle and he didn’t see any harm in letting them meet.

“Do you take requests?” Zay asked making Lucas laugh.

“Don’t worry about him Riley he just loves food, and cookies too.”

“I don’t mind, I never got to cook at the café because all of the pastries were made by the bakers who worked there so no one really tasted my food outside of my family,” she said as she served herself food. “And Zay I would take a request if you have one.”

“Southern Fried Chicken,” he said before putting more food in his mouth. “But that would be bad after eating this, so how about you surprise me with the best sandwich you can think of, and maybe some cookies too.”

Lucas slapped his friend upside his head the minute the cookies were mentioned. “Don’t push it Zay,” he said as he bit into his food.  “Oh god this is good,” he said as he chewed, Riley laughed and ate her own food. 

The three of them ate in silence as they savored their dinner, Zay making a comment every once and a while as he chewed. Lucas laughing, feeling almost human for the first time in a long time. When they were finished Riley automatically got up to clean but Lucas told her to take it easy. He cleaned the table and loaded the dishwasher , while she sat with Zay in the next room talking. He didn’t know about what but knowing Zay it was about the cookies, and anything else, how his friend didn’t weigh a million pounds was astonishing to Lucas.

While Lucas cleaned up Riley sat on the couch drinking a glass of wine as the fire place roared to life. Talking to Zay during dinner made her feel like she was at home with her family but now that they were alone she wanted insider knowledge on her husband. Something that no one but his best friend would know, because she needed to get to know the man she was married to.

“So Zay,” she started. “If I bribe you with cookies, my world famous double chocolate chip walnut cookies, would you tell me something about Lucas when he was a kid?”

“Oh sugar you tempt me, but that would be breaking the code,” he said trying to dodge the question.

“What if it’s just something that you two did together, I mean the man is a mystery to me most of the time but I would like to get to know something. It can be a funny story it doesn’t matter.”

“Well,” he started. Riley knew the cookies were a low blow but she had told Lucas something personal but still hadn’t gotten the same from him. “When he was little he lived in Texas with his mom, and his Pappy Joe, his grandfather, took him to a kiddie petting zoo. I went with them because my parents had to go to Arizona for something I don’t really remember. Anyway little Lucas was so excited that when we got to the goat pen to feed them Lucas had turned around at the wrong time, of course Pappy Joe had told him to never turn his back to an animal but Lucas had been bouncing around so much that he forgot. Well the goat grabbed him by the hair,” Zay started laughing as he told the story, she couldn’t help but laugh along with him. “Well the goat pulled Lucas so close because he was trying to get to the carrots in his pocket, when the goat let go of his hair he latched onto his pants and yanked them , as Lucas tried to pull himself off, but the goat pulled them off along with his underwear… I think Lucas still has the mark on his butt from the bite mark, you might have to check. Ever since then he won’t go anyway near a goat even though he loves animals.”

“Aww poor baby, I wish I could have seen that ,” she said giggling thinking of a little green eyed Lucas trying to pull himself away from a goat only to lose his pants. For some reason the image in her mind went to the little boy she had met when she was little, she wondered if Lucas looked like that little boy when he was the same age.

“Zay why did you tell her that story?” Lucas said as he walked into the living room with a beer in his hand. “I hate that story.”

“Yeah I know but it’s still funny as hell, Riley you should have seen face when he lost his pants, I almost peed my pants that day it was so funny.”

“Zay get out of my house,” Lucas said, but Riley knew that he was joking. She stuck her tongue out and smiled at him.

“How about I tell you the story of how I almost drowned when I was little,” she said knowing that it wasn’t as funny unless Maya was around commenting. 

“Geez, that doesn’t sound so funny,” Zay commented. Lucas looked at her with a worried face but she shook her head.

“It’s not that serious, it was Halloween, I was dressed up as a Princess, my friend was dressed as a vampire and  my other friend was dressed as the bag of a ninja costume , that’s a long story but I’m going to skip it, anyway my mother had one of those bobbing for apple bowls in the middle of the living room but had never told me what to do but I wanted to try it anyway so I stuck my head in but for some reason I couldn’t grab and apple and forgot to breath while I had my head inside the water and I started to suck in the water . My friend Farkle pulled me out of the water twice because I kept trying the game, but I couldn’t figure it out.”

“Oh Riley, that’s just weird,” Zay said trying not to laugh but he couldn’t hold it in and started laughing at the two of them. “Seriously you two were made for each other, you’re the weirdest pair when you were kids.”

“Alright Zay, time for bed,” Lucas said getting up but Zay pulled him back down. “Zay it’s nearly eleven and I have a meeting at seven.”

“Fine, plus I don’t want to make a bad impression on my boss because she might kill me,” Zay said but Riley looked at him confused.

Lucas laughed and turned to her, “A quick funny Zay story, your mom is his boss.”

Riley started laughing the moment the words had left his mouth, the thought of Zay and her mother in the same office was not something she had imagined. Her mother loved her job with a passion and that passion often showed when she was working and it was frightening, but Riley saw it as empowering.

“Whatever, goodnight you two,” Zay said walking upstairs. That’s when Riley realized that she was going to sleep in the same bed as Lucas and her heart started to speed up.

He looked at her and smiled, “You don’t have to do this,” he said knowing what she had been thinking but she shook her head.

“I’ll get used to it as long as you don’t startle me in the middle of the night,” she said. “I just need to take a shower because I smell like fried food.”

Lucas left her to shower in the master bath and she was glad to be alone for once, she had taken her duffle with all of her pajamas with her, except the majority of them were silk and she didn’t know what she would do, instead she picked out the only modest looking piece out of all of them, and the one that covered the most of her. A silk romper that cut off just above her knees, it was her favorite color and she hoped it would be decent enough that it wouldn’t cause too much of an issue. 

_ I can do this _ , she kept saying to herself. The two of them had only been married for a day and her mind kept going back to his perfect abs and his slight smile, and the look on his green eyes whenever he looked at her.

_ Oh I’m in so much trouble _ , she said as she finished up in the bathroom.

Lucas stood on the other side of the door changing into the only pair of pajamas that he owned, he wanted to make sure that there was enough material between the two of them. In one day the woman had already burrowed her way under his skin, she cooked his favorite meal, she opened up to him, if she smiled his body heated up thinking about how she looked at him. He defended her to her family, even though he had never done that before.

_ What was she doing to him? _ He wondered as he  finished up, and grabbed some extra pillows from the closet. As he was walking towards the bed the bathroom door opened and he saw Riley standing there in a one-piece silk number and he felt his body stand at attention. She looked beautiful as her hair was pulled back and he saw the smoothness of her neck, and her long legs. 

_ I’m in so much trouble _ , he thought to himself as he moved towards the bed.

“I can sleep on top of the sheet and you can sleep under it, the comforter is warm enough for me,” he said trying to give her a semblance of control over the situation. He knew that if he touched her legs at any point during the night he would lose himself. He also knew that there was no way he would be able to sleep with the extra restriction on his body.

“That’s fine with me, I usually get cold easily so…” she paused and looked up at him. “Anyway it’s fine.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t know if you liked extra pillows or anything, so I brought some out from the closet… I’m going to go brush my teeth and we can go to bed,” he said walking away as fast as he could. 

The sight of her in her pajamas had awoken his lower half and he needed to calm down before he  got into bed with her. He started by counting to a hundred as he brushed his teeth and washed his face. After he finished and he walked out he noticed that the lights were off except for his bedside table. Riley was asleep on her side of the bed, she must have been exhausted after the long day the two of them had. The bed was huge but she was curled up on the side as if her life depended on it and he thought it was adorable. He climbed into bed and turned off his light, it took him a while to fall asleep because he was aware of her being there but  after a while exhaustion took him and he fell asleep.


	6. Cookies, Conversations, and a little Something else

Riley couldn’t sleep that night, she closed her eyes to make Lucas think that she was sleeping and then she waited until his breathing evened out and before she could relax. She laid there looking at the ceiling as Lucas slept next to her, she wanted to know if they had a chance at a relationship as friends, since they’re married, but didn’t know if it would be weird. She didn’t know where she stood with him, and it unnerved her because her heart, the traitor, would beat uncontrollably whenever they talked or if his eyes met hers. It was insane they’ve only known each other for a day and yet she was reacting to someone she barely knew. 

It took her an hour to fall asleep from exhaustion, but when she did flickers of a long ago memory kept filtering in. The story of little Lucas mixed in with her own memories of the little boy she had met all of those years ago, now he had Lucas’ eyes and his light brown almost blonde hair. His skin was sun kissed except it was winter, and his smile was a million time brighter. He was a little prince there to save her. The memory played  in her mind over and over again, a happy memory that warmed her heart. 

As the night went on she dreamed of a world where she and Lucas had met under different circumstances, when her best friend made her let go of a subway pole and Riley went flying backwards onto his lap. She couldn’t hear what they had said to one another but it was a nice dream. When she got to school the same day the boy from the subway was there, they grew up together, they learned each other’s secrets, they did what they did best every single day, they talked . The last part of the dream was of him holding her close as they watched the sunrise.

It took Riley a minute to realize that the last part of the dream wasn’t a dream but something that was actually happening. Sometime during the night, she had pulled herself out of the sheet that was separating the two of them and attached herself to Lucas. Only now they were spooning and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her bare shoulders. 

“Uh… Lucas,” she said trying to wake him.

“Shh I’m living a fantasy I have of waking up next to this beautiful woman and you’re ruining it right now,” he whispered in her ear sending tingles throughout her body.

They were married so this should be normal but for some reason that was the one part of their relationship that they hadn’t defined. It worried her because she was afraid of falling in love with him when all he would want was a contract that expired.

A pounding on the door startled the two of them followed by Zay’s voice, “Hey Lucas, we’re going to be late so hurry up damn it.”

“Shit,” Lucas said jumping out of bed and running into the closet to change. When he came back out he was wearing a dark blue business suit and all Riley could think about was how warm he had felt not too long ago.

“Have a good day at work, I’ll bring you some lunch later,” she said smiling at him.

He stopped and looked back at her for a moment, “Riley we need to talk about something but since I’m late I can’t right now so it will have to wait until tonight.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about but  the thought of them talking without someone interrupting them for a least a moment made her happy. She set her alarm so that she could sleep for another two hours before she started making lunch for Lucas and Zay.

* * *

Lucas sat at his desk as work, the meeting had ended at eight and he didn’t know what to do with himself. The first thing he thought about was killing his best friend for interrupting what he was doing with Riley, but it would be too much of a problem. Although he would be talking to Zay when he came over for their afternoon meeting, because as much as he loved the guy like a brother he didn’t want him sleeping over anymore if Riley was going to be wearing those short silky rompers. 

The second thing that had been bothering him was that he remembered their night in Vegas, and although they hadn’t done anything scandalous the feel of her skin was burned into his mind. Their kiss that night had been brief, for the minister but it had lit up a part of him he never knew was there. Instead of marriage, he was going to propose that they date, the contract will still go on but he wanted to explore the feel of her body next to him, the sound of her laughter, the joy in her eyes when she started school again. He wasn’t giving her forever, but what was wrong with right now?

He had meeting scheduled throughout the day and he didn’t care about any of them, except the one right before lunch, the board of directors were meeting in regards to his position and he was afraid that they would try to back out, but legally the company was his and there was nothing that they would be able to do about it.

“Lucas,” Isadora said as she opened his office door. “The board of directors are making their way to the conference room.”

“Thanks Iz,” he said getting up and straightening himself out. “I’ll be up there in five minutes, do you have all of the papers we need.

“Yes they’re already up there,” she said looking up at him. “How’s the wife?”

“Geez, are you going to give me the third degree before I go up there?”

“Well Zay said a few things this morning when I called to confirm his appointment, and I wanted to make sure nothing weird was happening.”

“What did Zay say to you?”

“He thinks that she’s the one, that the way you looked at her during dinner last night was the same look his mother used to give his father every night. He also mentioned something about investigating your wife’s past relationships.”

“Iz, I don’t know what Zay saw last night and I’m not going to fight you or him on that, as for the investigating I just want to make sure that the press wouldn’t be able to get a hold of that information.”

“I understand, just so you know I’m the one that does those investigations for him, he never told you that because he wanted to keep it a secret.”

He looked over at her surprised, “Are you messing with me?”

“No, and you know I never would. I was bored one day and he said he was trying to find an investigator for something and I did it for him instead. Now go get to you meeting and I will work on who your wife knows and who she’s dated .”

“Iz, don’t dig too far, I just want to know about her exes, and I want a copy of anything you find so I can give it to Riley.”

“Alright boss, now go get before the Board gets angry.”

* * *

Her alarm went off waking her up, but when she opened her eyes she remembered the feel of Lucas against her back. He wanted to talk to her about something but she didn’t know if she wanted to know. She thought about it as she made breakfast, and even while she was making lunch. She remembered that Zay had asked for southern fried chicken so she decided to create a sandwich with the chicken, adding a special coleslaw on top that she had created when she was trying out recipes last summer along with the bread she loved to bake .  It was the one thing  that she made at the bakery, and she loved people’s reactions to her bread recipes.

As she started on the chicken she opened up her laptop, she had shoved the old thing in her bag the day before, and since it took a good five minutes to boot up she  sat there staring at the screen as it came to life. 

“This is taking too long,” she said as she got up and pulled out the ingredients for Zay’s cookies and started working on them. By the time she remembered the laptop she had made  the sandwiches and the cookies were cooling on top of the stove.

She sat down and started looking at schools, she knew that with Lucas paying that she could go to any school she wanted but she picked the city colleges instead. The education isn’t any different and she didn’t understand why some people valued an ivy league school over all of the other ones. There was one school near Lucas’ building, she wondered if she could go to that school. She decided that she would visit the school after lunch and see what they have available for her to study.

As she packed up all of the food, she smiled, she loved cooking for people but didn’t know how, in a city full of restaurants and businesses, she would be able to open up her own restaurant. For now, she was going to work on going back to school and everything else should fall into place.

“Mrs. Friar,” someone said to her. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

When she looked she noticed that the driver had been sitting in an outer office near the elevator , she hadn’t noticed the office before. 

“Uh, sure,” she said. “I didn’t get your name yesterday.”

“My name is Richard,” he said, the man looked no older than his fifties wearing his simple suit. 

“Well thank you Richard,” she said as he walked her towards the elevator. “How long have you known Lucas?”

“Well I’ve known him since his father moved him up here to the city after his mother died, he was so young when I first met him but he was always so serious. He didn’t get along with his  father much, especially the last few years but Lucas has worked so hard to get to where he is and I’m as proud of him as though he were my own son.”

“Thank you,” she said but when he looked at her confused she smiled. “For telling me about my husband, I feel like I’m always trying to get to know him.”

She honestly felt that way, they had only known each other for  a few days and when she would spill her guts to him, he had kept quiet.

“It’s not a problem,” he said smiling back at her. “If there’s anything you would like to know I will tell you.”

Riley thought about it but in reality she wanted to hear about Lucas from the man himself, not from the people around them. “As nice as that would be I would rather hear it from him, unless it’s something funny that he would be too embarrassed to tell me.”

“Not a problem Mrs. Friar,” he said as he walked her to the car. “He’s a good boy, and an even better man. He just needs the right person at his side to bring back the part of him he lost when he started focusing on the business and not himself. Don’t believe the rumors, they’re mostly lies.”

“Thank you Richard,” she smiled at him. The driver was a good person and judging from the way he talked about Lucas he had seen the same in the boy who grew up in front of him.

The drive to FIC was short, the city rushed by her windows in a blur of people walking from one place to another, as the taxi’s and buses rushed by next to them. When they pulled in front of the building Riley was scared, she didn’t know how much the people who worked there knew about her but she knew that she needed to get to Lucas so she walked up to the front desk and greeted the security guard.

“Hello Miss, can I help you?” he said looking at her.

“Yes I’m here to see my husband,” the word felt weird in her mouth as she said it. Yes he was her husband but she never thought it would have happened especially the way it did.

“And who would that be?”

“Lucas Friar,” she said hoping that he knew at least about her but the security guard just looked at her like she was an anomaly.

“Miss I don’t know what you’re playing at but you’re the fourth Mrs. Friar to walk in through those door, now if you would please leave it before I call the police for trespassing,” he said gesturing her towards the front doors.

She couldn’t believe it, how many other people tried to get into Lucas’ office since he got to work. But she remembered that he had said that the press would try to get infor mation anyway they could be posing as her  to do so. She stopped to try and find a way to call Lucas only to remember that she didn’t have his phone number, they hadn’t programmed it into her phone. When the guard pushed her towards the doors her phone fell on the ground, the glass shattering as it hit the floor. 

“Damn it,” she said putting the food down on the table before crouching to grab her now useless phone. 

“Riley,” she heard Zay say as she looked at her broken phone. “Do you have my lunch?”

She looked up at him dejected, the security guard wanted to push her out of the building and now her phone was broken, but Zay changed that in a moment.

“Why do you look like someone kicked a puppy?” he said.

“The guard is trying to kick me out because apparently several people have tried impersonating me today to get to Lucas, only I’m me and they won’t believe me and of course he pushes me before I get the chance to call Lucas,” she said that last part to spite the guard who was now glaring at her for not leaving when she should have. “And now my phone is broken and I can’t call Lucas to tell him that I brought lunch.”

Zay looked at the guard before looking back at her, “I wonder how much trouble he’s going to be in over this,” he sighed. “Give me a sec.”

Riley watched him turn to the guard and tell him that yes Riley was who she said she was, while Riley watched his face change color so fast for having the audacity to turn away his boss’s wife. Zay watched the guard trying to explain that a picture hadn’t been circulated but Zay said “Whatever” before walking away.

“Come on sugar, I’ll take you up to Lucas’ office, he’s in a meeting right now and he wouldn’t have picked up the phone anyway,” he said steering her towards the elevators.

“What did he mean that a picture hadn’t gone around?”

“Actually I know for a fact that they were shown your picture, Iz wouldn’t let that detail pass, but I’m guessing that that guy didn’t care enough to look,” he said rubbing his temples.

“So they’re all supposed to know what I look like?”

“Yeah it’s protocol especially since you’re the boss’s wife, and it was also supposed to be done because the press is getting anxious, since they haven’t seen you.”

“Oh,” was all she could say as the elevator ascended, she had forgotten that her identity was still a closely guarded secret. As the doors opened Zay guided her towards the office right in front of them. At the receptionist desk sat a pretty brunette wearing glasses, she was engrossed in what she was doing at her computer that she didn’t even look up at Zay.

“Hey Iz,” Zay said but the woman smirked at him. “I don’t believe you’ve had the chance to meet Lucas’ wife?”

At the mention of Riley, the woman looked up wide eyed before turning off her monitor to focus solely on Riley herself. It felt as though the woman was sizing her up as she looked at every inch of her. 

“Lucas will be back in a few minutes is there anything you would like to drink?” she said automatically.

Riley smiled and held out her hand, “Let’s start this again, I’m Riley.”

“I’m Isadora Smackle,” she said taking Riley’s hand. “I’m the brains behind the big guy.”

“I bet,” Riley said trying not to laugh. The woman reminded her of Farkle when he was going through that really awkward stage. “Would you like to have lunch with us? I brought plenty.” 

She looked between Riley and Zay before nodding, from the looks of it the woman didn’t like giving up her work. Zay led the two of them into Lucas’ office before sitting down on a couch near the window.

“If you want anything to drink just ask, the refrigerator is always stocked with almost everything,” Isadora said as she sat down. 

“If it’s not too much trouble, just bring some sparkling water, I made sandwiches for all of us,” Riley said as she pulled the food out of the bag. She wanted to talk to the woman about Farkle but didn’t know how so she thought about the best possible scenario and that was the dinner she was having the next day. She waited until Isadora sat down with a bottle of sparkling water and several glasses.

“Do I smell cookies?” Zay asked as he leaned into the food she was pulling out of the bag. “I smell cookies.”

Without so much as a second thought she handed Zay a bin full of double chocolate chip cookies and watched him open it and inhale the smell. After a minute he pulled out one of the cookies and ate it making a sound that was almost sexual, which made Riley laugh.

“You’re the most beautiful thing in the world,” Zay said to the cookie. “I would marry you if I could because you are heavenly.”

When Lucas walked out of the elevator he didn’t expect to see Iz missing, which was strange until he heard Riley’s laughing coming from his office. After the long meeting with the board of directors Lucas had been approved of full control over the company, but with contingencies, he had ninety days to prove that he was worth the title. Even when he owned the company he didn’t own the company.

He heard Zay flirting with Riley and automatically wanted to punch his best friend, the woman was getting to him and he knew it but he couldn’t help it any longer not after waking up in her arms this morning. He wanted  to date his wife, and maybe even kiss her senseless as well as a million other things. If only his best friend wouldn’t try to get in his way by flirting with her. All it took was two days and the woman was already in his mind and his groined.

“ S top flirting with my wife Zay,” he said as he walked in through the door. When he saw Riley in an extra-long shirt and black tights he almost lost his mind. She was beautiful.

“ I’m not , I’m flirting with the cookie , ” Zay said turning back to the cookie he had in his hand. Riley was laughing and Iz just looked confused.

“How was the board?” Iz asked automatically pulling out a notepad.

He sighed, “Ninety days to prove to them that I’m allowed to run the company I own.”

“They weren’t happy were they,” Zay said pulling himself away from the cookie he had in his hands.

“No they weren’t, for some reason, and I’m guessing my Uncle had something to do with this, they want to keep their control over the company.”

Riley finished setting out the food when he sat down on the couch next to her, she smelled like sunshine and fried chicken and it turned him on. He hadn’t had sex in the past two years, he had been fighting his father’s will tooth and nail and now here he was with a wife and he hadn’t even touched her.

“I got the paperwork for the contract for you, Mrs. Matthews wants to finish the deal by the end of the week,” Zay said as he grabbed a sandwich and inspected its contents.

“I’ll look it over and send them back with you after I eat,” Lucas said as he picked up his own. Iz followed looking at it like it was a bomb, the woman didn’t usually eat anything that she didn’t prepare herself.

Riley looked at all of them expectantly waiting their verdict, Zay took the first bite and groaned as he chewed. Iz followed as her eyes went wide, so when Lucas tasted it he didn’t know what to expect. So when the flavor exploded in his mouth he was surprised at how good it was, he looked over at Riley who had picked up her own food and started eating it like she had a secret.

“Did you put crack in this or something?” Lucas asked her as he ate his sandwich.

She smiled at him and shook her head. “Not really, but I’ve been experimenting with foods, ones that are normally hard to carry on the go and eat at the same time. Why is it good?”

Lucas looked around and noticed that everyone had finished their food, Zay was looking for more while Iz stole one of the cookies.

“I’d pay for that, it  tastes better than anything I could ever cook,” Iz said as she ate the cookie and smiled. “I’m a scientist not a cook, I thought I could do it but everything always tastes awful.”

“I second what she says,” Zay said  as he licked the wrapper the sandwich was in while he eyed Riley’s. “Did you make the bread yourself?”

“Yeah, I used the quick recipe for the bread,” she paused as if she were giving away the secret of life. “It’s not my best bread recipe but I didn’t have a lot of time this morning… I kind of went back to sleep after you guys left.”

“Ah so she did make us some homemade crack,” Lucas said as he drank his water. Riley looked at him shocked by what he had said. “It was good Riley, you should think of opening up your own place.”

“I wish,” she said looking down at her hands. “I want to go to school first and get my degree, and maybe one day I might open up a shop.”

“Is there a reason why you didn’t take over your mother’s café?” Lucas asked knowing that she had worked there for years.

Riley sighed and looked at him, “As easy as it would have been to take over my mother’s place, it wasn’t mine. I didn’t create it with my own hands, it was actually once owned by a really nice woman who passed away after my mother took over. ”

“So you want the chance to create your own place,” Zay said looking at her. “I’ll pay you for a week’s worth of goodies if it’s as good as this, hell you took the one thing I wanted to eat and made it portable.”

Riley laughed at Zay, which made Lucas nervous but his friend had a point the food was good, Lucas didn’t understand why she hadn’t sold it in her mother’s store. But like she said it wasn’t her place, Lucas understood the value of hard work because he took his father’s dying company and rebuilt it from the ground up. Even when the board and his father threatened to take it away it was his work that saved the company and now it was thriving and he had control of it once again. 

He wanted to give her that chance to build up her business from the ground up and the first thing he could do was invest in his own way.

“I have an idea, we can do a test run,” he said looking at her. “I want to hire you as an outside vendor over the summer months, you can test out your recipes here on my staff, they can pay for the food and put in orders in advance and you can deliver them for lunch.”

“That sounds amazing, but I would have to use the kitchen at home to cook everything,” she said but he knew that she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity. 

“That’s fine, I’ll be your first investor,” he said but Zay laughed.

“Yeah you will be,” Zay said with a smirk, it made Lucas make a mental note to kick his ass once they were alone. 

“Anyway, Riley work on the preliminaries and we can talk about it when I get home tonight,” along with what he wanted to talk to her about. Riley smiled and gathered all of the paper wrappers and containers that she had brought with her. Zay kept the cookies near him fearing that she would take them away. When they said their goodbyes Lucas was more than certain that he was going to ask his wife out on a date.

* * *

After she had left Lucas’ office, Riley went to the nearby CUNY campus and looked around before finding herself in the admissions office asking for information. She walked back to the car with brochures for the school and everything they had to offer, including a business  program that would help her if she decided to go through with the business idea Lucas was telling her about.

By the time she had gotten home, with bags and bags of groceries, she was so excited at the prospect of trying out her hand at selling her recipes. She started by creating samples for Lucas to try when he got home, she even worked on des s erts in case Zay showed up as well. She had forgotten that she wanted to talk to Isadora about Farkle, or even inviting her to dinner. She sent  Lucas a quick text about inviting Isadora to dinner as she pulled out several different recipes of cookies for Zay to try the next time she saw him, and a few pies and cakes for Lucas to try when he got home. 

When Lucas walked in through the door, Zay behind him, Riley couldn’t help but smile. It was almost seven so she guessed that they worked on the contracts until they were perfect, she hoped they were hungry but she knew it was stupid to think about it when the first thing Zay did was run towards the cookies.

“He wanted to come over and eat your food,” Lucas said as he reached her. He put his arm around her shoulder and kissed her forehead like it was the most natural thing. She knew it was an act but her traitor of a heart didn’t care and started pounding in her  chest.

“What’s your secret?” she heard Zay say as he picked up a cookie and shoved it in his mouth.

“You know I cooked actual food,” she said watching him. “I made samples of everything I would sell if we did this so you can taste… but it may have gotten a little out of hand.”

She showed them the counter in the kitchen with a million different kinds of food and des s erts, she knew she could save some for  their dinner with her family. But it was still a lot of food.

“Wow,” Lucas said looking at all of the dishes. 

“The cookies are for Zay,” she said and heard him cheer as he took another bite. “Don’t eat them all at once or you’ll get a stomach ache.”

“I understand that, how about the pies?” Lucas asked.

“I figured we could eat them tomorrow along with one of the cakes, I was trying to draft a menu and sort of just kept making everything I could…Plus it was the first time I had the chance to buy ingredients without thinking about the price so in the end I made everything all at once.”

“It’s okay, the fridge is huge and there’s a special pantry for stuff like this too, I had it made for when I had dinner parties. The caterers usually use it so we can store some of the cakes in there, and it has an extra fridge,” he said before dipping his finger into a coconut cream pie. 

“Don’t dip into it unless you’re going to eat it,” she said and for some reason it sounded dirty in her mind.

Lucas smiled at her and bent his head towards her ear, “I need to talk to you.”

“Zay are you going to stay tonight?” Riley said blushing at the tone of  his voice. Zay ignored them and started eating the food. “I’m guessing that he’s going to go into a food coma in about twenty minutes.”

Lucas laughed as he pulled her away, walking with her towards his office before closing the door. They were in the same room alone, and Riley felt as though all of the air had left her lungs.

“I have a proposition for you,” he said as he stood in front of her, his hands on both sides of her head. The air felt thick with anticipation. For a moment she had forgotten how to breath.

“And what would that be?” she whispered trying to catch her breath.

“I want to date you,” he said.

“But I’m your wife Lucas.”

“Yes but I want to date my wife, we didn’t put anything in the contract that states that we can’t date each other. The only thing I remember is something about us cheating, but it wouldn’t be cheating if we were with each other in that scene now would it.”

“But…”

“The contract still stands, one-year, but we could have a relationship with one another as well,” he said. 

The thought of a relationship with him felt tempting, especially since it had been nearly two years since her last relationship. With this one she didn’t have to worry about what would go wrong because they already had a set end date in mind.  _ Why shouldn’t I have a little fun? _

“Sure,” she whispered thinking that somewhere someone was listening to them. “I wouldn’t have to worry about betrayal or anything tragic happening since we set the terms of our relationship already, and it would be nice to have a somewhat normal relationship with you that doesn’t feel like a lie.”

“It wouldn’t be a lie at all,” he said, in his voice she heard anticipation and something close to desire and it made her body heat up.

Before she could say anything else he leaned down and kissed her. At first it was tentative, but as desire took over he demanded more and Riley wanted to give it to him. The softness of the kiss turned into passion as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer to his body. He pulled her closer as he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up, which gave her the chance to wrap her legs around his waist. She could feel the hard lines of his body  underneath his shirt and as much as she wanted to feel his skin under hers she didn’t want it to go that far just yet.

He pulled his lips away from her mouth and slowly worked his way down her neck, leaving a hot trail of kisses as he kissed her. She missed the feel of his lips against hers but he didn’t give her what she wanted instead he made his way up to her ear and bit down. She hadn’t known that her ears were erogenous zones until this moment and she didn’t want him to stop but the sound of the door opening behind them and smacking her on her butt was enough to make them pull apart.

“Dude that is not something I want to see,” Zay said as he walked back out.

“If he didn’t want to see it he wouldn’t have opened the door,” Lucas said his voice full of what could have been.

“We should get back out there,” she said as she slowly climbed off of her husband.

“Yeah, or we can get back to making out. But knowing Zay he came in here for a reason, and considering the amount of food out there it has something to do with that so we’ll get back to this later.”

“Yeah, later,” she said wishing they would have kept going but she wasn’t comfortable with doing anything further with someone so close.


	7. Dinner

Lucas want to kill his best friend, not only had Zay walked in on him and Riley making out, he had made them stop only to tell them that he was taking some of the food for lunch the next day. Riley looked relieved since she had made so much, but Lucas wasn’t, in fact all he wanted to do was take that coconut cream pie and drag Riley away only to eat it off of her.  But he knew that he had to take it slow with her, even though he just wanted the lust to go away. Instead of doing what he wanted he sat down at the table and ate dinner with the two of them, helping her figure out a short menu to work on. 

While Zay and Riley worked on putting away the des s erts and the leftovers Lucas excused himself so that he could take a very cold shower. He couldn’t get the feeling of Riley’s body pressed against his out of his mind and he was going to sleep in the same bed as her. While he was in the shower he thought again about the pie and Riley and automatically he realized that whatever had him lusting over her wasn’t going to go away soon but for now he was going to date her as if they were just two unmarried adults. 

When he walked out of the shower he realized that in his desperate attempt to get away from his wife he had forgotten to grab clothes. He grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist,  drying his hair on a hand towel as he walked into the closet. He looked around and noticed that Riley had unpacked her bags at some point, she didn’t have a lot but he was sure that when the rest of her things arrived her side would have more stuff. Without looking where he was reaching he opened a drawer and grabbed onto something. 

What he thought was his underwear drawer was filled with a number of lace and silk underpants, he had only seen Riley in her romper so when he saw the amount of lace he was surprised. He didn’t know that she liked that kind of stuff the only problem was that now it was burned into his mind and he wanted to see her wearing them and nothing else. He quietly cursed himself and shut the drawer making sure that the next one he opened had his underwear in it.

“He y Lucas,” Riley’s voice startled him making him drop his towel on the floor and leaving him completely naked in front of the woman who was now taking over his mind. “Oh I’m sorry,” she said as she  rushed out of the room.

“Damn it,” he said to himself as he rushed to get dressed. “Riley, give me a second and I’ll be able to talk.”

He needed another cold shower but he couldn’t get back into the bathroom, instead he pulled on a shirt and his pajamas and walked out into the bedroom only to find it empty, only to see that Riley was on the floor on the other side of the bed.

“Do I want to know why you’re down there?” he asked when he saw her.

When she looked up he noticed that her face was as red as a tomato, “Sorry I didn’t mean to walk in on you changing.”

“Riley, you have to get used to that we’re married it’s going to happen,” he said knowing that it might not be the right thing to say.

“It’s not that I’m embarrassed about that it’s just that… well…” 

He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “Riley, I actually do want a relationship with you, at least one that would end on good terms.”

The moment the words left his mouth he knew that they sounded stupid but he couldn’t stop himself from saying them.

“I kind of want that too, but I guess, I wasn’t prepared… Anyway I came to ask if you wanted me to pack some of the left overs for lunch tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and pack some for Iz too, she might like it.”

“Oh can you ask her if she wants to come to dinner tomorrow, I didn’t have the chance to ask her today and I think she could be a good match for Farkle, the two of them are very driven.”

“I’ll ask her,” he said as he got up. “ I forgot to do it earlier when you texted me but I’ll remember tomorrow.  Did you finish putting everything away?”

“ Yeah, Zay helped… actually he was eating a lot of it. I swear I should put veggies in his food or else he’s going to get sick.”

Lucas couldn’t help but laugh at Riley acting like a mother hen, “Can you please make a cookie that has veggies in it and let me watch as you tell him what you made?”

Riley started laughing with him, Lucas felt a comfortable closeness between the two of them growing and he liked how it was going. He also realized that he shouldn’t push the relationship even though he wanted to.

They both finished getting ready for bed in a comfortable silence, Lucas hadn’t realized that he was tired until his head hit the pillow. When Riley fell asleep beside him he was happy that she had started to become so comfortable around him. As he slept he thought back to when he was visiting his father in New York for the first time, and his father ignored him for so long that he went out to the Manhattan Mall to watch the families as they walked around. In front of him was a little girl crying, she had a purple hat on with cat ears on it, for some reason that’s all that he remembered, but he couldn’t help but think of Riley as that little girl. He remembered helping her as they waited for her parents to find her. He had held onto her small hand thinking about how nice it must be to have a family to worry about you.

When her parents found them she said thank you with a giant toothy grin before walking away, the only thing he had from that day was the memories. It was the only memory from his childhood that had seemed so innocent compared to watching his parents fight.

* * *

The bed felt empty when Lucas left, and as much as Riley wanted to stay in bed, she couldn’t. She missed the warmth from his body next to her, they had only been together for three nights and all of a sudden it felt so normal. It was as if a part of her, the one piece of herself that she didn’t know was missing, had been thrown at her and now she needed to figure out a way to make it work. Instead of getting off of the bed she rolled over to his side and inhaled his scent, as if it was the most normal action in the world. She fell back asleep with his pillow in her arms as if it were a long lost teddy bear.

When she woke up an hour later she got up and started working on getting her things from her apartment packed and sent to storage and her clothes and some of her pictures and knickknacks sent to the penthouse. Lucas had said that she could have the library and she was going to use it  as much as she wanted, even adding some of her things so that it would feel like it was hers. Once all the arrangements had been made and she was set to go over there and supervise later in the week she started on researching the school she had visited the day before. The school had a business program and if she was going to take a chance on the lunch order menu, and even a business that was all her own she needed her business degree to get off of the ground. 

It took most of the day trying to put together everything she needed before she talked to anyone about the school, she wanted to talk to Lucas about her plans along with the menu. This was the biggest step towards anything that she had ever taken, and for once no one was going to stop her. When she looked at the clock it was mid-afternoon, and she realized that she had to get started on dinner. She wanted to impress her family as well since they were to going to be the first to hear about her plans. She had enough side dishes and desserts but she needed a main course, the only thing she could think of was roasting a chicken or using the grill that Lucas had out on the terrace to grill steaks and maybe some other things, it was cool outside but the grill would keep her warm. She decided on doing both in case some people didn’t want steak, or making kebabs with the meat and some veggies. 

“Why not just make all of it,” she said out loud as she pulled everything out of the refrigerator. 

She started on the chicken and once it was in the oven she worked on the kebabs, making sure she used everything she could stick on them. As she prepped the food her phone rang from the other side of the room . She rushed over to pick it up before realizing that she had a kebab on one hand and a veggie in another, she laughed and skewered the veggie before answering the phone.

“Hello,” she said walking back to the kitchen.

“Well hello my wife,” Lucas said from the other side of the phone. “I’m only calling to tell you that I’ll be home around five, Iz cleared my schedule for the dinner, and yes she’s coming so don’t ask me again.”

“Well hello my husband, and it’s good to hear because I wanted to talk to her about something, it’s not Farkle related, but I want her insight on something research related, I figure she’s good at that.”

“That is something she is good at,” he said. She heard him sigh on the other end. “You know I don’t think I’m ready for this dinner, I don’t know anything about your family outside of the fact that your father is overprotective and your mother is a shark lawyer.”

“No worries, because I know nothing about your family either… well except the obvious part, but we can tell them that we only got to know each other before we got married.”

“I’m pretty sure that it would only irritate your father because I didn’t ask his permission to marry you or even meet him before we decided to take that step.”

“Well the truth is it wasn’t his decision, we did it on impulse and in the end we decided on our own to do what we wanted… Anyway, about last night… were you serious about us dating?”

“Yes Riley, I was a hundred percent sure, neither one of us have had a relationship in a while and it would be good to know each other better. Who knows we could come out of this as friends.” 

“Okay, anyway I have to get back to cooking. You’ll be here at five, everyone is getting here around six, so that gives us time to talk about our relationship,” she said blushing at the thought of dating her husband. 

“I look forward to it,” he said but she could hear the sexual thoughts he was having and it sent shivers through her body.

“Bye Lucas,” she said hanging up before he brought up something else that would distract her.

Riley worked around the kitchen making sure everything was ready, the kababs were marinating in the fridge, the chicken was roasting, she put some mac and cheese to bake as well as some over roasted potatoes. The kitchen was a dream and she loved it, Riley was sad that Lucas didn’t use it. At a quarter to four she ran towards the bedroom to shower and change into something else, as she got out the doorbell rang. When she got to the door and opened it everyone she knew was standing on the other side.

“You guys are early,” she said as they walked inside. “By two whole hours.”

“We wanted to check out the place,” Josh said as he kissed her cheek. 

“Yeah, plus your dad was freaking out the minute he got home,” Maya said trying not to look excited. She loved her father’s freak outs more than anything.

“Yeah it was kind of funny,” Auggie said as he walked in. “Geez Riley you can fit our apartment in this living room.”

“No you can’t I know I tried,” she said as a joke but everyone just looked at her like she was crazy.

“My baby,” her father said rushing through the door and hugging her. “Why is your hair wet?”

“Because you came two hours early and I had just finished showering when you came here,” she sighed. Her hair w as going to be a total disaster and she knew it.

“Well I wanted to see you as soon as possible, it’s not the same with you not being at the café every day,” he said pulling her aside. “Is he treating you alright? He’s not making you do something you don’t want to do?”

“Geez Cory you make it sound like Lucas tied her to the wall and was throwing bread at her or something,” her mother said as she walked up to Riley. “I’m sure he has been the perfect gentlemen.”

“Yes he is,” Riley said as her face began to heat up thinking about the kiss from the night before. “Anyway, I’m still cooking dinner, I just ran upstairs to shower while I had the chance.”

“Why are you cooking Riles, your husband is loaded,” Maya said.

“Yeah Riley why are you cooking?” her father said his indignation started showing. “Why would you have to cook, why aren’t you doing something else?”

“Because dad, I love to cook and if you hadn’t noticed all of those years I spent cooking dinner for you and Auggie, then I’m starting to think you weren’t paying attention. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to check on the chicken and tie up my hair before it gets out of control,” she said walking towards the kitchen. She used the hair clip that she left on her apron and  started checking on the chicken.

“Hey Riley,” her mother said as she walked into the kitchen. “I’m sorry about your father, actually about the both of us.”

“Why are you sorry mom?”

“Because even though I’ve been very level headed about this, I’m afraid that you’re making a big mistake, but I know that we’ve held you back for so long that you did the first thing you thought would get you away from us.”

“Mom, yeah I guess Lucas and I didn’t really think about what we were doing, but honestly  that’s what makes it all the more romantic. I’ve never done something so spontaneous in my life because I had to always think about everyone else and for once I had the chance to do something with someone and it meant the world to the two of us,” Riley said before stopping to catch her breath. “I think that the only reason why you and dad can’t get over it, well it’s because I was always around and for once I’m not there to help you.”

“I think it’s called empty nest syndrome, Auggie is still living at home but since he’s in Columbia with Ava the house just feels empty without you. I know you moved out a while ago but still you were always there,” her mother sighed looking at her. “I have to learn that my kids aren’t kids anymore. Auggie accepted this faster than anyone but that’s because he’s always complaining about how we baby ever decision you make, and he might be right.”

“Now who is going to tell dad?” Auggie said joining them in the kitchen. “I’m glad you’re happy, I’m going to miss your sandwiches though.”

“Oh well you really won’t, especially if you want a part-time job helping me with them,” she said smiling.

“What do you mean?” Auggie looked at her surprised.

“ Well I’m thinking of starting a lunch business while I go to school,” she said smiling. “But don’t tell anyone yet, I’m still getting everything together and I just applied to school. Lucas doesn’t know about which school but he told me that I should go for it, actually he was the one who gave me the idea for the business too, well him and Zay.”

“Zay?” her mother said. “Isaiah, the guy who works at my firm? I forgot how close he was to Lucas.”

“He’s coming today, and he’s obsessed with anything I bake,” she said as the memory of Zay flirting with the cookies, she couldn’t help but laugh when it crossed her mind, and then the memory of Lucas and the pie flashed through her mind and she could feel her face heat up.

“She’s thinking about something,” Auggie said.

“Sorry I just remembered something Lucas said yesterday and my mind got away from me,” she confessed and automatically regretted her decision.

“The honeymoon stage,” her mother said. “She’s mooning over her husband, anyway Riley do you need any help with anything?”

“Not really I baked a lot yesterday, but if you want you can grill the kababs and some veggies while I go call Lucas and tell him you’re all here.”

“Okay, I’ll get your father to help. It might make him feel manly,” she said before kissing Riley, and pulling Auggie in for a hug. “My kids are good kids, I could never be prouder of the two of you.” 

“Thanks mom,” Riley said walking out of the kitchen to go find her phone to call Lucas and warn him. She saw her uncle standing with her best friend and walked over to them. “Hi Peaches, Josh can you do me a favor and make sure that my dad doesn’t burn down the apartment while he uses the grill. I don’t want to have to explain to Lucas what happened if Daddy does try anything.”

“Well hello to you too,” Josh says smiling. “And yes I’ll make sure nothing bad happens.” He kisses Maya before walking away, reminding Riley of the kiss she and Lucas had shared the night before, she wanted more from him but with Zay around she felt self conscience about doing anything. After she saw him naked in their closet yesterday her body reacted long before her mind could force the words out of her mouth. She hid herself because she didn’t know if she could control the urge to jump on him.

“Thanks,” she said and walked off. Her phone was on her bed, and she needed to fix her hair so she ran up the stairs as quickly as possible so that she could get back down. She actually feared her father burning down the place in an effort to get her to move back home.

She didn’t hear the sound of someone following her until she opened the door to her room and she heard the gasp. When Riley turned around she saw her blonde best friend standing in the doorway.

“So you followed me because?” Riley said questioning her best friend. “Curiosity killed the cat remember.”

“Well you can kill me later because now I’m just jealous,” Maya said looking around at the white walls in the bedroom, and the giant king size bed covered in dark blue silk sheets. Maya touched the bed and just looked at her like she was trying to form a sentence.

“Yes I know how soft they are, I sleep in that bed,” Riley said trying not to laugh. Her phone wasn’t on the bed so she walked into the closet and saw it on top of her underwear drawer. She dialed Lucas’ number before Maya could distract her and listened to the phone ring.

“Yes my wife,” Lucas answered, his greeting making her blush.

“Well my husband, everyone came here early and now I’m in the midst of trying to get ready and having a house full of people,” she said as water dripped from her still wet hair.

“We can’t have that conversation can we?” she heard him sigh on the other end. “I’ll be home in fifteen I finished early because I wanted to talk to you but I guess that has to wait. Zay should be there soon, and Iz is coming with me.”

“Okay I’ll see you soon,” she said but her thoughts were on the conversation he wanted to have, and the fact that he sounded disappointed in the fact that they wouldn’t be able to have it at all. Especially with a house full of people,  _ it wasn’t a conversation he wanted and I know it _ , she thought to herself.

“Riley… Earth to Riles,” Maya’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “Geez I would be lost too if I had this closet, but I’m guessing you weren’t thinking about the closet.”

Riley gave Maya a choked laugh trying to hide her real thoughts, “Yeah this closet is amazing, you should see the bathroom.”

She walked away to the bathroom knowing that if she didn’t fix her hair and get back downstairs  the world was going to end in chaos the minute Lucas walked in through the door. As she started braiding her hair to the side, the only way she could tame it at that moment, Maya walked in and stood by the sink.

“So,” Maya said looking at her best friend. “Why didn’t you tell me you and this guy were together?”

Riley sighed, she didn’t want to have this conversation in a house full of people but she knew that Maya wasn’t going to let it go at any point. At least they were alone away from everyone else.

“Maya,” she started. “you know I love you but we share everything, you know things about me that not even my family knows, and only you and Farkle know the truth about my other relationships because you were there every step of the way.”

“Because I love you Honey, you’re my sister,” Maya said smiling. “And those two guys weren’t good enough for you and you know it.”

“Yes I know but I’m afraid that you’re going to hate Lucas and I’m going to be stuck between my best friend and my husband. Maya he’s a good guy and hardworking but you have this tendency of being a little too overprotective.”

“Well can you blame me, I hated Charlie but I didn’t say anything because he made you happy but when he started to come between us and tell you all those nasty things to bring down your self-esteem I wanted strangle him. Of course the minute he hit you all I saw was murder,” Maya said looking Riley straight in the eye.  “Seriously how your parents never found out about that I would never know.”

“You’re never telling them about that, it would only give my father leverage to lock me up in a tower like I was some Disney princess.”

“Of course, but then Logan comes around and the sleaze takes your money and runs off, if I ever find him I’m going to kill him.”

“What?” her mother’s voice shocked Riley causing her to trip on the towel she had left on the floor earlier.

“Mom,” she squeaked.

“Riley have you been hiding these things from me? From your father?” Maya looked at Riley guilty about what had happened.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that Mrs. Matthews,” Maya said. “I really didn’t.”

“Riley, tell me now,” her mother’s commanding voice still made Riley squirm like a little girl being punished for taking a cookie before dinner.

Maya looked around like she wanted to run but instead she stood stock still trying to give Riley some support.

“Well,” she started and although she was scared she knew that her mother would do anything to get the truth out of her. “You know how Charlie and I dated for a long time…” she said telling her mother the story of how she and Charlie had gotten together, and how after all the time they had been a couple he slowly started showing a possessive side that bordered on something close to wanting to kidnap her and keep her in a basement. Her mother gasped when she heard that Charlie had hit her and she walked away that she ended up in the hospital because he had all but pushed her down the stairs. Her mother was on the verge of tears before she made Riley keep talking, she finished with Charlie and moved onto Logan who she had been with nearly two years before, and how he had taken everything she had saved up for nearly ten years and ran off  leaving her to try and figure out how to get everything back.

“I’ll kill them, but first I’m going to make sure that they’re suffering long before  they die, I need to talk to some attorneys in my office because I swear I’m going to make them pay,” her mother said which made Riley smile. 

What happened with Charlie happened when Riley was the most vulnerable, her mother was sick there was nothing she could really control. Logan was another problem, one that she was ashamed of because she only started dating him because she wanted what Maya and Josh had, so she hadn’t really thought it through. Of course the minute everything went downhill she blamed herself for trying to be selfish for once.

“Don’t worry mom,” Riley said as she pulled her mother towards the bed so that they could sit down. “I’m over it and I have a husband who takes care of me.

_ Even though it’ _ _ s only for one year,  _ she told herself automatically regretting her decisions.

“Riley, why are you so strong?” her mother said. “I don’t know what I did to deserve a daughter like you.”

“Mom someone had to be strong, you were going through so much,” Riley said trying to forget the years that her mother was sick. “I had to step up and take care of my family, I just didn’t stop to think about myself and Charlie had taken advantage of that. I’m stronger now.”

“Yes you are, but we’ll keep this a secret from your father, I don’t want him to lock you up in a tower,” she said with a smile. “I’m glad you and Lucas found each other, he’s a good man and I wish I had introduced you to him when I first met him. If I would have known when I met him that he was going to change your life I would have made sure you would have met each other.”

“Thanks mom,” Riley said trying not to cry. “Now let’s get downstairs before Daddy burns down my house.”

The three of them laughed before walking out of the room and joining their friends and family.

* * *

The moment Riley hung up on him he wanted to kick himself, he wanted to use the hour they had before her family showed up to talk about their relationship and maybe even kiss her senseless. He still had the memory of the night before playing over and over again in his mind and all he wanted to do was feel the heat of her skin under his. 

_ Zay is definitely not sleeping over anymore, _ he thought to himself. He wanted his wife and his best friend was stopping any progress the two could have made. He finished his work early only so that he would get home and  run his fingers through Riley’s hair. The smell of her shampoo was permanently imprinted in his mind.

“Lucas,” Iz said pulling him away from his thoughts. 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice was hoarse and it cracked as he said it.

“I finish the investigation on your wife’s past relationships, and both of the men still live in the city, although that Logan character had used a false name when he was with her. I used facial recognition software on a photo I found of him and Riley,” Iz said looking down at a stack of notes. “His real name is James Oliver, he lives in Brooklyn now in a big loft, which means he did this to several women because he wouldn’t be able to afford that place if he had just done it to Riley.”

Lucas felt his blood boil, he knew that he had asked for the information but the thought of this guy getting away with what he had done made him want to punch a wall.

“How much did he take from Riley,” was all he could ask.

“Well that’s the thing,” Iz said watching her boss. “He cleaned out five grand from her checking account, apparently she always had the money on hand but I don’t know what for.”

“And her savings?”

“Somewhere close to twenty thousand dollars, she had been saving everything since she was a teenager according to her bank records, she even had an inheritance from her grandmother on her mother’s side that was another ten grand that disappeared. Riley didn’t use any of it, her apartment above the bakery was paid for by her mother because it was a part of the building, and other than her love of books, and her monthly Netflix subscription she didn’t really spend anything. Well except for the occasional purchase at Victoria Secret.”

Lucas remembered the drawer full of lace and silk and thought that Riley held back on everything but that was the one area where she hadn’t held back at all. He wondered why.

“What about the other guy?”

“Well he was easy, she has a restraining order on him, apparently even after they broke up he would show up where ever she was according to the police report. His name is Charlie Gardner, he went to school with her since they were in middle school, they didn’t start dating until high school. It seems that he started with verbal abuse according to her friend Maya’s witness statements, and she was in the hospital twice with injuries from him.”

“She told me it was only once,” he said surprised that Riley hadn’t told him about the other time.

“Well the second time she didn’t know it was him, apparently she was attacked outside of her mother’s café on the way home from work, in the police report it seems that they found out it was him from the skin under her nails when she scratched him. She had gotten away because she kneed him in the groined before she punched him in the face. The police found him in a hospital that same night.”

“Good girl,” he said under his breath.

“When the police told her that they found the guy she said that she didn’t want to know who it was or why they did it, she was pretty traumatized by the incident. The restraining order against him is pretty solid but she needs to renew it by the end of the year.”

“Thanks Iz,” he said genuinely grateful for the woman who worked so hard for him.

“It’s my job,” she said before turning to walk away.

“Let’s go we need to get to my house before Riley goes crazy with the amount of people there,” he said getting up and grabbing his jacket. 

Iz nodded before walking out and grabbing her things . Lucas was silent on the way to the car, he greeted his driver and sat down in the back running the entire conversation through his head. He was starting to feel guilty over marrying Riley the way he did, yes they both agreed to go  through with their contract but it felt wrong. The only way to make it up to her is to give her a year that she would never forget, and one that didn’t end with her heartbroken.

“Iz do me a favor and find a way to go after Logan or James whatever his name is, I want Riley to at least get her money back. Talk to Zay or find someone you can work with to do it, and make sure that he’s put in jail for doing what he did,” he said knowing that it wouldn’t erase the heartache Riley had lived through but it would give her back at least a little control over her life.

Iz handed him a folder with everything that she had found, and automatically pulled out her phone to write down what she needed to do. Lucas knew he needed to give the woman a raise for all that she did for him.

When the car pulled into the garage it was a quarter to five and all he wanted to do was grab his wife and pull her into his arms.  When he walked into his place a minute later there were people everywhere but his wife was nowhere to be found. He saw Zay standing with Farkle talking about something, so Lucas decided to introduce Iz, to Riley’s best friend the genius.

“Hey Lucas welcome home,” Zay said reminding Lucas that he needed to kick his friend out after the dinner was over. 

“Hey Zay, Farkle how are you doing?” Lucas said. 

“Fine, it’s a great place you have here, although I haven’t seen the rest, Riley sort of ran upstairs to get ready and I’m guess her mother and Maya are making her show them the place,” Farkle said shrugging his shoulders like it was normal for Riley to be hostess, but it probably had something to do with her mother’s job.

“That’s fine, I’m going to go find her in a minute,” he said before pulling Iz towards them. “Riley wanted me to introduce you to my assistant, and the woman who practically runs my company. Farkle Minkus, this is Isadora Smackle.”

The pair said hello to each other in an awkward way before Farkle mentioned something about nuclear fusion and Lucas just left them alone to talk, pulling Zay away from the two.

“I’m going to go find Riley but can you do me a favor and keep an eye on everyone,” he said. Zay nodded as Lucas walked away. When he got to their bedroom he noticed the girls sitting on the bed, Riley had her arms around her mother and her mother was saying something about killing someone. 

He didn’t know what he was walking in on but he grabbed the file that Iz had given him and walked into his room to the women sitting on his bed. Riley looked up at him and smiled.

“Hey, I just got home, I also introduced Farkle to Iz and they started talking about things that I don’t understand, I guess that means that they hit it off,” he said while looking into Riley’s brown eyes.

“That’s good, I hope they like each other,” she said while her mother and her friend looked between the two of them. “We were having a conversation about um… my past relationships.”

“Oh,” Lucas said  looking at the women in the room. He decided to tell them all considering they all knew about it now. “Well about that.”

“I know you know Lucas, but can you not tell anyone else,” she said pulling him off to the side. “I don’t want my dad finding out.”

“Well then we should have this conversation now,” he said handing her the file folder. “I asked Iz to look into it because I wanted you to get some kind of closure.”

“Please tell me I can used this to nail them to the wall,” Mrs. Matthews said. Lucas nodded knowing that the lawyer would use it in every way possible, which means that she would be the best ally that he could have on this.

“Iz was very through,” he said but when he looked over at Riley her face was as white as a sheet. “Riley what’s wrong?”

“His name wasn’t even Logan,” she said  quietly making him rush towards her and pull her into his arms. He didn’t know why he had given it to her without warning her. He pulled the file away before she found out that Charlie had attacked her right after she had filed a restraining order against him. 

He handed it to her mother, “Use it however you want,” he said before pulled Riley towards her side of the bed. Her mother and her best friend walked away leaving the two of them alone.

“How could I have let that happen?” she said as he pulled her into his arms.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to get everything back, and you’re mother is probably going to get off for murder once she finishes killing him and Charlie,” he said but she looked up at him shocked.

“There’s stuff in there about Charlie?”

“Yeah and I don’t want you to read it until you’re ready.”

“Lucas,” she said trying not to cry. “You’ve done all this for me, all I’m doing is  taking advantage, I don’t know anything about you and I’m starting to feel guilty,” she whispered the last part but he shook his head.

“Honestly Riley, my life is out in the public eye so you can find out almost anything, and you aren’t taking advantage, I did this because I didn’t want the press to find out only to have Iz find so much that I didn’t want you to freak out when you found out what I did.”

“Yeah but…”

“No buts, plus you’ll get to know me while we date and with all of the parties you have to attend and fake the fact that you like anyone there, I got the better end of this deal.”

Riley laughed and Lucas thought that it was finally calming her down. He pulled her up and walked her to the bathroom and cleaned her face with a wash cloth. When he was done he kissed her on the lips and pulled away waiting for her to smile. Instead she pulled him back down and kissed him again, this kiss was demanding and raw, he knew that she was trying to use it to push away the memory of what she just saw but he could also feel her desire for him. Lucas gave in and  pulled her in as close as he could. He ran his hands over the fabric of her sweater wishing that the damn thing was on the floor and off of her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he groaned into her mouth.

“Not to interrupt your little make-out session,” someone said from the doorway. “But Riley’s dad is already freaking out about her being gone so long, and how Lucas didn’t say hello when he walked in.”

Riley pulled away and turned towards the door as Lucas buried his head in her shoulder. “Maya we’ll be out in a minute.”

Riley didn’t know if dinner was a good idea anymore, all she wanted to do was to drag Lucas to bed and just  let him have his way with her but her father was downstairs and she knew that if they didn’t go downstairs he would come up and find them. The last thing she wanted was for her father to find her having sex.

“Come on Lucas,” she said jumping off of the counter she hadn’t realized that he had put her on top of. “We can finish this later.”

“So there’s going to be a later,” he whispered in her ear making her shiver. “I’ll take that as a yes, now give me a minute I’m going to change out of this suit.”

“Okay,” she said and walked out to find Maya waiting for her in the hallway.

“Any doubt anyone in this family had about you and him being together, well that’s out the freaking window. I need Josh to hold me like that because it was hot,” Maya said fanning herself.

“Maya,” Riley squeaked out at her friend. “Shush, you’re not allowed to say anything.”

Maya laughed at her and they walked down only to have Maya look around at the room full of everyone they knew before saying, “You will not believe what Riley and Lucas were doing.”

“Maya,” Riley screamed, she felt her skin flush as she raced towards the kitchen to check on the food. Her father followed her and stood in the kitchen as she opened the  oven.

“Riley,” he said as she pulled out the mac and cheese.

“Yeah daddy.”

“Are you sure about this? Are you sure you didn’t rush into anything? I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“I don’t regret anything,” she said trying to think with a level head and not yell at her father . “ Daddy, you have to learn to let go because I’m a grown up, I’ve been a grown up for a while now.”

“Yeah but you’re my baby, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you and I don’t trust him.”

“Then learn,” she said.

Riley saw Maya standing in the doorway and tried to reign in her anger at her father, who although she loved to death would freak out if Riley got a hang nail. She also knew that although Maya loved to watch Riley’s father freak out this wasn’t the right time to be excited about it.

“I didn’t teach you to raise your voice at me young lady,” he said looking at her as though she committed a sin. “You’re going to speak to me with respect and listen to what I have to say.”

“And you’re going to stop freaking out and listen to what I want for once,” she countered. She could feel all the eyes in the room on her from the bar seating that separated the kitchen and the living room. Yet for once she knew that he would have to listen because if he didn’t their relationship would go in an entirely different direction.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that young lady, not unless you want to be grounded.”

“You can’t ground me I don’t even live with you.”

“That’s what you think,” he said grabbing her arm as though he was going to drag her home. Instead she pulled back and looked at her father, she knew that he hated change more than anything but this was a whole different level of weird.

“Cory,” she heard her mother say as the shock wore off. She watched her father’s face change as though someone had taken away his favorite thing in the world.

“No Topanga, she’s making a mistake,” he said.

“I don’t think she is, hell even Maya doesn’t think so either, why are you so against this?” her mother asked but Riley knew. He had been there for everything and the one thing that was left was for her to leave home and he didn’t want it to happen.

“Daddy,” she said looking at him. “I know we didn’t go the traditional route, but you need to let go . I don’t want this to ruin our relationship but I’m not opposed to picking sides, especially since that’s where you’re headed.”

He looked up at her and then to Lucas who had made his way into the kitchen.  “Why did you have to take my baby away,” he said to him.

“I didn’t mean to do it the way I did sir, but don’t let this ruin your relationship with your daughter. She loves you and she would want you to get to know me, and if it takes a long time, I would want to get to know you as well,” Lucas said although Riley knew the truth to it all she wanted to believe in forever for just a moment. “Sir, I didn’t have the best relationship with my own family but I want to be a part of yours so don’t put a wedge between yourself and your daughter over me.”

Her father looked at Lucas, and Riley realized that for the first time he was seeing her husband as a different person. 

“We’ll take this one day at a time,” her father said making her sigh in relief. “I want a monthly dinner, with all of us, and we all have to take a trip every season as well even if it’s just for the weekend.”

“We can do that sir,” Lucas said. Riley watched the tension fall away and was relieved when her father pulled her into a hug.

“I still want to be your father,” he said in her ear making her cry. 

“You will always be my daddy,” she said.


	8. Under Starlight

Lucas watched at Riley’s family slowly got to know her new life, together they entertained them and talked about Riley’s business aspirations. As she explained every detail to her family including menu options he watched her face light up. She told them all about how she applied to go back to school in the fall and get her degree, while running the business she was getting together. He was proud of her because she was following her dream.

“So when can we expect grandbabies?” her mother asked causing Lucas to choke on air, and Riley to spit out the drink she was taking.

“Mom,” she squeaked. Lucas was trying to breathe, because the shock had been too much.

“Seriously though, I want you two to think about when you want to expand your family,” she said looking at them. “It doesn’t have to be now because Riley’s going back to school, and Lucas is getting that huge deal that would give him access to that land in Arizona that he wants.”

“It’s still in the works Mrs. Matthews and you know it,” he said trying to move the topic away from him being a father. He didn’t want to be, he didn’t know if he was good enough to be a father considering his own family was in shambles. He also didn’t want them to know that their marriage had a shelf date.

“No babies,” her father squeaked as he  finally got his voice, for once Lucas was grateful for the man’s need to protect his daughter. “I’m still getting used to the fact that she’s married, so please no more surprises.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not thinking about babies right now,” Riley said. “One day in the future yes but that day will be a very very long time from now.”

Lucas didn’t say anything, all of a sudden the thought of Riley pregnant with another man’s child pissed him off, he kept his face as guarded as ever but in his head he was screaming. He shouldn’t want her like this, he knew he would have to let her go but the thought pissed him off.

As the night wore on the urge to drag her away grew, he knew he shouldn’t want her like this, they have only known each other for a few days. Yet fate was tempting him. When everyone was getting ready to leave he felt like he no longer had control of himself and he didn’t like that. 

“Goodnight,” Riley said as she closed the door. Zay had been pushed out with the rest of them and Lucas made sure that the door was locked so that his friend wouldn’t come in. He counted to  twenty to make sure that everyone was gone, as Riley started to pick up the dishes and cups that were littered throughout the living room.

“Leave it, the cleaning crew will be here in the morning, they’ll get to it,” he said his voice was rough but he was slowly regaining his senses.

“Okay,” she said but she walked to the kitchen with the plates she had gathered and placed them in the sink. His eyes followed her movements  as she walked back and forth, when she returned to his side she handed him a beer, and grabbed the cup of wine she had poured before everyone left.

“How about we drink this outside and get some air,” he said looking at her. “It has been a very long day.”

“Yes, it has,” she said walking towards the terrace. 

The city below them was lit up with the lights of the passing cars, and the lamppost illuminating the walkways. The buildings were slowly coming to life around them but all he could see was Riley in front of him taking in the view. She stepped towards one of the lounge chairs and sat down and watched the sky light up around them.

“Is there anything else in that report I should know about,” she said as she took a sip of her wine. “I know I said that I didn’t want to know but I have a feeling that there’s something in there that you know would upset me.”

“Do you really want to know? Are you sure?” he said wondering if it was a good idea to bring it up.

“Yeah, I don’t need any more surprises.”

“You were attacked one day, the guy was wearing a mask right,” he said trying not to look at her and failing. When she nodded he took his beer and sat it down on the table before sitting down on the chair next to her. “The attacker was arrested based on DNA evidence from a scratch you gave him. Turns out he was in violation of a restraining order,” he said before looking down at her hands. She was shaking, the wine in her glass was moving from side to side. He took it from her and set it down.

“Charlie attacked me,” she said not believing the words coming out of her mouth.

“Yes, although he’s not in jail, I don’t know why when he should have been, he violated the order against him by coming after you.”

“His dad worked for the NYPD well last time I check, he was a high ranking officer, and his mother is a socialite, they would have made sure that the scandal disappeared,” she said her  voice shaky as she finished. “They left the restraining order in place because they knew that they would have to answer for some part of what had happened with me.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that,” he said as he pulled her close. He held her there under the little bit of stars that hung over the New York City skyline, while the city was lit up around them. His shirt wet from her tears, as her body shook from the revelations that she had seen with her own eyes, with what he had just told her. She had gotten a bad deal in life, as much sunshine as she brought with her, it was only there to cover the scars on her heart.

He hadn’t known how long they had sat there until he realized that Riley’s breathing had evened out, she had cried herself to sleep and it was all because of him and his fear of the press taking advantage of her. He held onto her as he tried to move to pick her up, she had instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck and burrowed her face into his chest. He felt his heart tug as she made herself comfortable in his arms. She felt safe with him and he was going to break her heart in a year. 

_ What if it doesn’t have to be a year _ , his mind told him but he knew that it wouldn’t be a good idea.  _ It can be _ .

He didn’t know what he was thinking , he didn’t know how it was possible that she had already become a part of his life and they had only known each other a handful of days.  Yet the smell of her body wash drove him crazy with need, and the way she smiled made him feel like anything was possible. He put her in bed and went to the bathroom to gather himself, sitting there on top of the counter he felt as though the missing parts of his life were slowly coming together and it was all because of one person.

Riley hadn’t known that she had fallen asleep until she realized that she was in bed fully clothed, she hated sleeping in her regular clothes and got up stumbling toward the closet to grab some pajamas. She hadn’t seen Lucas when she had gotten up so she figured that he must have gone to work on something in his office so as she pulled off her clothes and left them lying in the closet and pulled on her pajamas, she decided to go to the bathroom and brush her teeth and scrub the little bit of make-up she had on off.

She opened the bathroom door as she tried to figure out the buttons on the nightie she had picked up when she came face to face with Lucas sitting on the counter, staring at her bare chest. If it was possible for a person to become a tomato she would have, instead she felt her body flush at the sight of him and covered her chest up with her hands. The only problem was that she had let go of the nightie and it fell to the ground revealing her panties, which had been nothing but black lace and practically see through.

The sound of Lucas swallowing made her slowly step backwards, as she tried to get to back to the bedroom and hopefully lock herself in the closet from embarrassment. She realized that they were even now, since she had walked in on him the day before.  _ Oh god… oh god… he saw me  _ _ naked _ , she screamed in her head but she hadn’t realized that trying to walk out of a room without knowing where you were  she was going was a bad idea. Instead of walking through the doorway she had bumped into the door and closed it.

“I’m just going to…” she tried to say but it he jumped off the counter and rushed towards her grabbing her face and kissing her.

She felt her body slowly melting against his as he deepened the kiss. It felt as though he were trying to consume her, the kiss slowly ended and when she saw his eyes all she saw was the black of his eyes. 

“I want you,” his voice hoarse as he said it. He slowly kissed the soft spot between her neck and her shoulder before biting down making her gasp. “I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he whispered in her ear but she couldn’t say anything.

“Lucas,” she whispered as he lifted her up onto the counter. She didn’t think it was fair that she was naked in front of him as he stood there completely dressed but as she tried to pull off his shirt he grabbed her hands and pinned them to the mirror.

“I’m going to do everything tonight,” he whispered in her ear making her shiver with anticipation. “No touching.”

“But, I want to feel your skin against mine,” she said her voice so quiet she almost missed it and she was the one who said it.

Lucas pulled her close and picked her up, slowly moving towards the door, “I need your help here sunshine,” he said as he slowly nibbled on her ear. 

Using her hand, she twisted the door knob and pulled it open as he guided them towards the bed. The room was dimly lit but the feel of the silk sheets against her bare skin made her hyperaware of what was happening around her. As he latched himself onto one of her nipples she moaned causing him to stop and look at her, just the look in his eyes was enough to send her over the edge. She had been celibate since before whatever his name was, they never got that far, he was only after her money and she had never felt this heat with Charlie in the years that they were together .

“I want you now,” she said to him causing him to jump up and strip off his clothes, standing in front of her completely naked, his body was full of hard lines and muscles. A small tattoo just under his collarbone, she didn’t know what it said but she wanted to taste his skin there and find out. He went to his drawer and grabbed a condom and was on top of her in an instant.

“You’re going to undo me Riley,” he said to her as he kissed his was down her chest to the line of her underwear. He licked the skin where the lace met her body as he slowly pulled them off of  her body. His hands leaving a hot trail down her legs all the way to her toes before he tossed them across the room and smiled when he saw her completely naked in front of him. 

“You’re beautiful.”

She couldn’t talk, he mind wasn’t forming the words as he slowly kissed her from her toes all the way up her leg. “Lucas,” she whispered. He started to move slower than before stopping at her breast and giving them equal amount of attention until she was ready to scream. When he stopped and faced her his lips slammed down on hers and pulled her into a deeper kiss than the one that had started this all. 

In her mind a memory was trying to surface, of a kiss from their wedding, but she couldn’t form the memory as his  tongue was in her mouth and his hands roamed  around her body. When he pulled away and slipped on the condom her body was screaming at the loss of contact. He was on top of her as fast as he could be and slowly pushed his was inside of her, filling her in places she didn’t even know existed. She grabbed onto his back and held on as he slowly thrusted inside of her, without thinking she had bit down on his shoulder as he began to go faster. She screamed out his name just before he stopped panting next to her, his body on top of her. He pulled out and took off the condom before pulling her into the blankets and pulling her body close to his.

“That’s something I don’t think I would ever get used to,” he said as he yawned. The clock on the nightstand read one in the morning, and they were both tired from the long day and all of the conversations they had had. They slowly fell asleep in each other’s arms.

* * *

Lucas walked into his afternoon meeting with Zay, still smiling from the night before, even three meetings with investors and board members didn’t dampen his good mood.

“If you smile and wider I might have to punch you in the face just to get you to be surly again,” Zay said as Lucas sat down at his chair. “I’m guessing you had a good night, especially after that long dinner with Riley’s family.”

“I’m not getting into my night, just give me the final contracts so you can go back to work annoying Riley’s mother,” he said but the smile hadn’t faded.

“It’s a good thing I went home last night,” Zay said handing him the contract. “Dude is that a bite mark?”

“Zip it,” Lucas said. A knock on the door drew their attention away from their conversation and towards Iz who was standing at the door with Farkle behind her.

“Lucas, I forgot I made the meeting with Farkle last night but didn’t put it in your schedule,” she said, that’s when he noticed that she was wearing a red dress with her blazer. It seemed that she was trying to impress Farkle, and he was glad because that meant she would leave him alone for a little while.

“It’s okay he can come in I’m just signing these and sending Zay on his way,” he said looking at the contract quickly to make sure that nothing was added at the last minute.

“Yeah he doesn’t want to talk about the bite mark his wifey left on his neck,” Zay muttered making Farkle laugh and Iz run out of the room.

“You know what Zay, I’m going to tell your boss the most embarrassing story that I can because of that.”

“Dude, don’t you dare.”

“It seems fair,” Farkle said as he sat down with them. 

“No, you’re not allowed to gang up on me, I’m helping Iz with your best friend’s problems,” Zay blurted out as Lucas cursed under his breath.

“What is he talking about?” Farkle said looking at Lucas. “What is going on?”

“You can’t say anything we’re trying to keep this underwraps, the only people who know are in this room, and Iz, as well as Riley, Maya, and Mrs. Matthews. Riley doesn’t want this to get out because she doesn’t want to relive it but we’re working on getting her money back, and going after both of her exes for what they did to her.”

“I can help, I’m good at creating programs to fish stuff like that out, I hadn’t done it because Riley told me to stay out of it, but she deserved more than she got out of those relationships. Charlie was bad enough, but Logan was a straight up asshole who should have been in jail for what he did.”

“You can help Iz, Zay and Mrs. Matthews are building a case against them, especially since Charlie had violated his restraining order and didn’t receive jail time,” Lucas instantly regretted the words.

Farkle stood up and walked out of the room only to come back pulling Iz in with him. He stood there as he made them spill the details of everything that they had found out, by the time they were done Lucas could tell that Farkle was angry but also determined to help them out.

* * *

Riley stood in her doorway looking at her best friend who surprised her with a visit, “Maya what are you doing here?”

“Oh please like you have anything better to do,” Maya said as she walked into the penthouse carrying several bags . She stopped and looked over at the table and the sets of sandwiches sitting on the bar. “What are you doing with all that food?”

“Creating samples, I was going to have someone come over and take them to FIC, and have the staff pick out which ones they want on the menu,” she said as she walked over and wrapped up the food. “Or if they want to order the food at all.”

“You really are making a business, well I’m going to design your menu.”

“That would be great,” she said as she grabbed the basket she had set out for the food and started putting everything inside. She had questionnaires for everyone to fill out and left a few blank spots for things she hadn’t thought of. Richard knocked on the door just as she finished.

“I’m here for the delivery Mrs. Friar,” he said with a smile. “Thank you Richard, and there’s a bag in there labeled for you to try some of it out as well. Lucas said that Isadora set up an office for the tasting so just give it to Isadora, and she will set everything up.”

“No problem miss, and thank you for the food,” he said before walking away. Ever since she moved in the old man had taken care of her, and she wanted to make sure he ate properly.

She turned her attention back to the blonde in the living room who was staring at her as she walked back in. 

“So,” Maya said. “How did you get that hickey?”

Riley had thought that she had hidden the mark but the shirt had ridden down exposing the mark that Lucas had left on her.

“Um, well Lucas and I got carried away last night,” she said feeling her skin flush. “I also left a bite mark on him.”

“I didn’t know you were so kinky Riles, Oh my god, your father would freak if he knew any of this, he still thinks you’re as pure as holy water in the Vatican.”

“And you’re not saying a word or else I’m telling Uncle Shawn about that time in eleventh grade when you stole that bottle of vodka and started taking shots on my roof.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Maya squealed.

“No I wouldn’t because I don’t go around blabbing secrets, and neither do you so shush.”

“Whatever, I’m actually here because you were going to help me pick out a hairstyle for the wedding, and I brought your dress from the shop. It’s finished and you need to hang it up before it wrinkles.”

“Okay, let’s go upstairs to my room and hang this up, that way I can also sit you down in the walk in and use the mirrors to figure out your hair.”

Riley worked with Maya all afternoon, with the wedding just days away her best friend was only nervous about not looking her best in front of Josh. But as the talks kept going to the wedding, Riley wished that she could remember hers, for now all she had was the small memory of Lucas kissing her at the alter but it was still a memory she wanted to keep.


	9. The Wedding

In the days leading up to Maya and Josh’s wedding, Riley had conversations with Lucas, they ate dinner together and talked about their day. Riley told him that his staff responded to her food and they had already started putting in orders, she was ecstatic and he would smile at her. At night they made love until they passed out in each other’s arms, and Riley could feel herself falling deeper and deeper into her feelings for Lucas. It was still the beginning of everything in their relationship but in her heart was slowly letting him have a piece and it scared her.

On the morning of the Wedding Riley and Maya were getting ready in a small church just outside the city. Maya wanted a small wedding with only their closest family and a few friends, so when she had found the church she fell in love with it, the reception would be held in the back of the church in a large tent that they had erected. Everything was pale yellow and white, the flowers were everywhere and Riley knew that her best friend had worked hard on making it a masterpiece. 

It made Riley’s heart ache because she still couldn’t remember her own wedding the week before, even as she got closer to Lucas, but somehow one memory had come to her, their first kiss. She felt the sparks with every kiss he had given her since and  each kiss brought back a small memory from that day.

While they got ready, Riley sent Lucas photo messages of the flowers, her shoes, her dress while it hung on the hanger, and the bodice of her lace corset bra she had picked. 

“Riley what are you doing?” Maya asked as her friend walked around in a robe. “For crying out loud we’re in a church and you’re sending Lucas pictures of your freaking underwear… Take one of mine so I can send it to Josh.”

Riley laughed as she took a quick photo for Maya before giving her best friend the phone back. When Riley’s phone pinged a minute later she saw a message from Lucas.

_ You’re testing me here woman, and I’m next to your father so please don’t make this any more awkward. _

She giggled before sending a quick  _ I’m sorry _ back to him with a purple heart next to it. Maya looked up and cornered her best friend.

“You’re lucky that mark faded and the lace in your dress covers what’s left, because I don’t want your dad freaking out at my wedding,” Maya said before sitting down to put on her three inch heels. “Geez Riles, why hadn’t you told me that you were in a relationship?”

The lie came back to Riley and she hated it, she didn’t want to keep a secret from her best friend, but she also didn’t want to betray Lucas who had  put his whole life on the line because he needed to be married. The lie was the only thing that she had, and it was still partially the truth.

“Sorry Maya, it’s just because of who he is we didn’t want it to get out,” she said looking down at the blonde before slipping on her dress. “Now the wedding was an impulse decision and we should have thought it through but it was Vegas and he showed up because of a business trip, you and Josh were celebrating and after one too many drinks we kind of just went with it.”

“Do you love him?” Maya asked. 

The words struck Riley in the gut, she thought about their conversations, the way he touched her when they were in bed, or when they took showers together. How she watched him while he worked in his office and she brought him water, or when he watched her cook dinner. It had been a week but her heart skipped a beat, she was falling in love with Lucas.

“Well judging from the flush of red on your face the answer is yes.”

“I think that sometimes falling in love with someone takes an instant, they come into your life like a storm and you don’t know what to do, but the moment they become a permanent part of your life they become the lightest part of your heart and you can’t find a way to be without them,” she said knowing the truth of her feelings, and now it was going to break her heart the moment their contract ended.

“That was beautiful, I should have made you write my wedding vows,” Maya said making Riley laugh. “Oh well, Josh is stuck with the traditional ones.”

“But he loves you anyway,” Riley said as she put on her shoes, they were as high as Maya’s and only because her best friend wanted Riley to have a version of her own shoes, of course Riley knew that they were going to hurt by the end of the day.

Lucas felt out of place, in a parlor room with Riley’s family all around him. He had been introduced to her Uncle Eric, her Aunt Morgan, and several other people. Every once and a while Riley’s father would glare at him, even after their dinner a few nights ago, the man still believed that Lucas was the devil. So he busied himself talking to Farkle about the solar farm he wanted to make and the plans Farkle had for the tech they would use to make it.

“I think Mr. Matthews is going to kill you,” Farkle whispered. “We’re in a church and he’s going to kill you.”

“Does anyone here actually like me?” Lucas asked looking around at all of the people milling around.

“Well I do, because I know you would protect Riley, her mother likes you and Maya is warming up to you because you want to get Riley’s money back.”

“I’ll take what I can get. So did you bring Iz with you?” Lucas watched the genius in front of him blush which confirmed his suspicions. “She’s a good person Farkle, treat her well.”

“I will, so far we’ve been going out to dinner every night, we have a lot in common but we also argue about scientific articles that we both read.”

“As long as you both like each other  it should be okay,” Lucas said as Mr. Matthews walked up behind him and tugged him aside.

“Friar I need to talk to you,” he said with the glare of death on his face.

“Sure sir,” Lucas answered walking away with Riley’s father, as he gave Farkle a look of pure horror.

When they got to the front of the church they stopped and Mr. Matthews turned around to face him. After he took a deep breath he punch Lucas’ arm and stood as close as he could.

“You hurt my daughter I won’t hesitate to end you,” he said reminding Lucas of Mrs. Matthews’ threat earlier in the week.

“I will work to prove myself to you sir,” Lucas answered trying to ignore the fact that he had just been punched outside of a church.

“I don’t like how you two went about this, and I know my wife thinks highly of you and works with you often, ” he stopped and looked him directly in the eye. “B ut the reason it bothers me right this moment is that I get to watch my daughter’s best friend walk down the aisle at her  wedding, her father and mother at her side, and I didn’t get the same chance. I love my daughter very much and you stole that moment from me.”

Lucas didn’t realize how much a single moment meant to the man standing in front of him, and how his own selfishness to continue had stolen something that couldn’t be recovered.

“Sir, one day you will get that chance, it might take a while but you will,” Lucas omitted the fact that it might not be with him, but he wanted to reassure the man.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said before walking away. 

Lucas walked into the church and was ushered to his seat as the wedding was about to begin, the thought that Riley walked down the aisle at her wedding drunk and now has no memory of the night hurt him. It was a moment she should have remembered but she didn’t and he didn’t know how he was going to make it up to her.

As the wedding party walked down the aisle he watched her friends and family smiling because of the joyous occasion. The moment Riley  began to walk all of the thoughts he had had left his mind as he marveled at how beautiful she looked in the pale yellow dress, the lace covering her shoulders, her hair in loose curls. She gave him a quick smile and blew him a kiss as she passed him, everyone else in the room was looking at the bride behind her, but his eyes were on Riley, turning his body as she passed him. He remembered the picture she had sent him not to long ago and it made his whole body stand at attention. 

Riley was smiling as her best friend walked down the aisle, every once and a while she looked over at Lucas as she sent her a slight smile. Farkle had told her that her father had cornered Lucas just before the start of the wedding and she felt guilty. Yet her heart was light for a moment, she loved her husband, and although she couldn’t tell him it was still a beautiful feeling in her heart. When Maya crossed her and Shawn and Katy handed her over to Josh, Riley knew that she needed to start paying attention to what was happening in front of her.

She cried as she watched each moment, when they exchanged vows, their rings, and their first kiss as husband and wife. But she could also feel Lucas’ eyes on her and it sent shivers up and down her back. She wanted him so badly but she couldn’t do anything about it. As everyone walked outside and waited for Maya and Josh to come out so that they could throw petals at them, Lucas found her and kissed her in front of everyone she knew. She wanted to stop him but she knew that she wanted it as much as he did. Her father cleared his throat making the couple pull apart, but she was happy. 

Maya threw the bouquet Riley ended up catching it even though she wasn’t standing where all the other single women were. Everyone around them laughed but Maya had refused the chance to throw it again. 

“I got my wedding, maybe one day you will get the big wedding too,” her best friend said, and Riley couldn’t help but want to cry.

Everyone walked towards the back of the church and they sat down at the tables, just as a spring rain fell in the background. Riley smiled knowing the significance of the rain and her newly married best friend and her Uncle. Lucas looked at her and smiled taking her hand and placing  it against his lips.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered in her ear. 

“You look handsome yourself,” she said blushing. “By the way, sorry for leaving you alone with my dad. Farkle told me what happened.”

“Don’t worry… it comes with the territory.”

“Yes it does, just like how Farkle also told me that Zay was giving you a hard time the other day because I left a bite mark on your shoulder,” she couldn’t help but giggle as she said it.

“So, I think we should leave around six,” he said whispering in her ear. “And go up to my cabin for the night.”

Riley knew that she was ready to leave at that moment but she had to stay for the reception, even though she had more interesting things to do. She looked down at his wrist and pull his sleeve up to look at the time, it was only a quarter after three. She could survive another three hours without combusting.

“Sure, but for now we eat and dance, and play nice with all of these people,” she said getting up. 

Lucas looked down at her shoes and slowly made his way up towards her face, “Those shoes are never coming off.”

“Seriously which is closer the penthouse or the cabin?”

“The penthouse if we leave now, the cabin once traffic starts to get crazy, but I have a helicopter on standby if you want to go back to Manhattan.”

“Yes,” she whispered but her father stopped next to them causing Riley to pull away from Lucas. “Daddy, can I help you with something?”

“Yes I want a dance with my daughter ,” her father said slowly pulling her away. She couldn’t help but laugh, but when Lucas began to dance with her mother she felt a tug on her heart.

“So my darling daughter, I had a talk with your husband,” her father said.

“I already know about it, remember you’re surrounded by everyone you know. I just want to know why you hate Lucas so much, he hasn’t done anything to you other than marry me. Mom likes him, Maya likes him, even Auggie likes him so why?”

“Fathers are very protective of their daughters, no matter how old they get,” he said smiling. “You’ll learn the hard way when you have kids of your own. But since that’s not going to happen until you’re forty.”

“Daddy, I swear,” she said laughing. 

Throughout the reception Riley was whisked away by her family, one at a time, she barely got the chance to talk to Lucas, and she knew that her father had something to do with it. He wanted to control her life even at the wedding of her best friend, so when six o’clock rolled around she faked an ankle injury so that Lucas would have to take her to a doctor. When he picked her up off the ground she giggled in his ear.

“Don’t take the shoes off,” she whispered.

“You lied to your family just to get me alone,” he said, it was almost a growl. “You’re lucky I drove because we’re going to the cabin and I’m going to lock the door until we have to leave Monday morning.”

“That gives us about twelve hours so you better get to it mister, I didn’t fake this injury for nothing.”

Lucas couldn’t believe what Riley had pulled just to get away from her family, who had used everything possible to keep them apart all night. Just as they made it to the car Maya walked up to them with Riley’s stuff and a knowing look.

“There’s cake and some food in the bag,” she said as he put the items in the back seat. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said before walking away.

Lucas looked at Riley confused, “She helped me conspire this little getaway,” Riley said giving him an innocent smile. “Take advantage Lucas and let’s get going before my father realizes what we’ve done.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said closing her door before he ran to the other side and got into his car. He sped off faster than he intended but ever since he received that photo from Riley his  body was screaming.

The cabin was an hour ride from where they were but Lucas made it there in half an hour, by breaking a couple of speeding laws on the highway. Riley giggled the whole time as the car went  seventy miles per hour sometimes eighty, each time she giggled he sped up knowing it was dangerous but doing it anyway. The woman had a control over him that no one had ever had,  not  even his ex-girlfriend who dated him just before his father’s death. 

When they pulled up Riley grabbed the bags and Lucas grabbed the keys and rushed to the door to open it up, he went back and picked up Riley off the ground and walked her into the cabin.

“I’m going to have my way with you,” he said as he shut the door and placed her on the floor.

“Can we eat first, I didn’t really have the chance to eat when we were there,” she said and Lucas knew he should blame her father for dragging her away from the table every chance he got.

Lucas sighed but then remembered that Maya had packed some cake, grabbing the bag he pulled it out and set it on the coffee table. 

“We’ll eat the rest later,” he said as he picked her up and set her in front of the couch. “Let’s get this dress off of you,” he handed her a piece of the cake and placed it in her mouth. She chewed as he worked the buttons on the back of the dress.

“What are you going to do eat the cake off of me,” she giggled. “It’s kind of kinky… Let’s do it.”

Lucas laughed at her enthusiasm but shook his head, “No you eat the cake I’m going to have something better.”

Her eyes widened as he slowly took the dress off of her and revealed the corset top she was wearing underneath, it was mostly lace and left little to the imagination but it curved around her body in all the right places. He wanted to keep it on her no matter what his mind was telling him, she squirmed in front of his gaze but it only made him want her more, as he looked at her hips and saw a garter belt holding up her nude stockings. He almost lost it just from looking at her.

“Eat,” he growled as he nibbled on her neck, when she was done chewing he claimed her mouth and tasted the sweetness of the cake with the raw passion of his wife . When he pulled away he saw that her hands were filled with frosting and he took care to lick it off one finger at a time as he looked at her as her eyes slowly closed.

“Lucas,” she whispered and that was all it took for his control to snap, all he felt was the heat of her hands and the raw need to be inside of her. He pushed her down on the couch and listened to her giggling as he did it. 

“I hope you don’t like these panties because I’m going to rip them off of you and have my way with your body,” he said trying to hold control over his urges.

“The ties come off, just pull,” she said to him. He growled at the fact that she came prepared and pulled the ties off of the underwear.

“You’re so sexy,” he said as he tossed the underwear across the room. His hands slowly traced over the curves of her body, the feeling of lace and her heated skin, he touched her breast through the fabric not wanting to take it off of her. He wanted the image of her in nothing but those heels and the corset top burned into his memory.

“Lucas please,” she said to him and he pulled off of her and grabbed her bag to pull out the condoms he remembered her putting in there before they had left the house that morning. Stripping off his clothes as he walked back to her.

“I’m going to do you on this couch, and when we’re done,” he said kissing her neck, “and then we’re going to christen the bathtub I had installed here a month ago,” he said as he kissed her collarbone. “And when you think you can’t do anything else we’re going to go to bed and do everything I’ve ever fantasized about since I was a teenager,” he said as he sucked on her nipple through the lace. 

When she moaned he cupped her from behind and slowly moved her towards him as he moved onto to her other nipple. She whispered his name, but he didn’t hear her as he slowly entered the heat of her body and began to push inside. Her hips bucked under her and he let go of her breast and claimed her lips. Nothing but raw passion and heat between them.

Riley woke up on the couch an hour later wondering where Lucas had gone only to see him in the kitchen bare assed naked eating some of the cake that was left in the wrapper that Maya had given them. She was still in her heels and  her corset top, her stockings were ripped from their little adventure on the couch so she pulled them off along with her shoes. She had actually tripped during the reception and her ankle was slightly bruised but did look like anything major, she would have to stay away from the heels for a while.

“I hope you’re not eating all of the food because I’m starved, and not for sex, well not yet anyway,” she said looking at his naked body. “Yeah not yet.”

He smirked as she said it because he knew that she was watching him, so when he purposely dropped pieces of cake on himself she didn’t fight the urge to lick it off of him and just went for it. 

“Food can wait,” she said and he nodded as he picked her up and put her on top of the counter.

They went at it a couple of times throughout the house, she never got the chance to eat anything at all but the taste of him made her dizzy with anticipation, and with need. She had never felt this kind of need before and it made it even more special because she knew that she was falling for  him. It could have been one sided and she didn’t want to ruin it by spilling her emotions. She just wanted to savor the moments she had with him before it all went away.

When they left the next morning to go back to the city, they were both exhausted, neither one of them slept at all during the night, except for the cat naps throughout the night. Lucas stayed at home and the slept the morning away before he went to work for his afternoon meetings. Riley made herself something to eat as Richard delivered the groceries she asked for, she gave him his lunch and asked about his family. He would tell her about his grandchildren, and his kids who were all a wonderful happy family, most of them lived all around the country but they got together once a year for a family reunion, they were going to the Grand Canyon that summer. 

Her father called to check on her in the afternoon asking about her ankle,  she told him that it was only bruised and that she should be fine in a few days. They talked for a little while before hanging up. She walked around the apartment looking for something to do, before she ended up in the library with the forms of what people tasted and liked, and suggestions for other options. Some people asked for more vegetarian options, others asked for a few dishes that could be put in a bowl. She wrote down ideas of everything and made a list of what she would need to buy to test them out.

When Lucas returned that night she had dinner ready, using some of the recipes that she had thought up while reading what people had wanted. He gave her constructive criticism on all of the dishes and asked her to pack some up for Zay to try the next day.  When they finished they showered together and made love that night before falling asleep in each other’s arms. This was their lives every single day, they talked on the phone, they talked at home, she cooked, sometimes he cooked with her help. The months passed and they lived in their own little world, and she was happier than she had ever been. She worked on the orders for her summer business, even enlisting the help of her younger brother and his girlfriend Ava for the deliveries. Auggie then convinced her to sell some of the sandwiches at her mother’s café, her mother gave her the profits for everything they sold.

When August came and she had to get ready to start her first semester of school Lucas complained because he wanted her all to himself but when the first day of school started he had given her a red leather messenger bag as a present. She made sure that her classes were in the afternoon, so she could make all of the food for the deliveries in the morning. Lucas came home for lunch and took her to school before going back to work, he kissed her and wished her luck when they got to campus, before he left drove off. 

“A new beginning,” she said as she went to class for the first time in years.


	10. Labor Day

Every year Lucas attends a Labor Day party, that’s hosted by one of his business associates, he normally went for a short amount of time before leaving. The last time he went he was there for only an hour because he had a business call with an investor in Japan and he couldn’t miss the call. This year it would be Riley’s debut for these kinds of functions, he had been able to skip most of the other ones throughout the summer because of his projects and because he didn’t want to leave the city only to have to talk with people who  were connected to his family.

He had remembered the first time the press had found him and Riley, they had gone out to dinner at a restaurant in Korea Town, only to be bombarded with photographers as soon as they left. The police had to be called just so that they could drive off and go home, only to be followed all the way there. Riley’s face had been on the front page of every major online gossip site, and even the cover of the newspapers. Now he was willingly taking her to a party where she would have to stand in front of cameras and he wanted it to be perfect. He wanted her to have a good public appearance because when she opened her business away from the kitchen in the apartment she needed the connections she made that night to build her business.

“Lucas,” she called out to him from the bathroom. When he walked in she was wearing a dark purple cocktail dress and three inch pumps that sparkled with purple glitter.

“Yes Riley,” he said trying to reign in his urge to push her up against the counter and have his way with her.

“Is this too much? The outfit?” she said as she twirled around in front of him. 

He sighed and walked up to her and kissed her hard on the mouth, when he pulled away he smiled at her. “The dress is perfect just like you.”

She was leaning on the counter giving him a shy smile as he walked away, he didn’t want to go to the party anymore but he still had to.  He thought that the urge to have her in every way possible would stop after a few months but it hadn’t and he couldn’t even think about letting her go after the year was up. He was in trouble and he knew it but he didn’t tell Riley about how he felt, for some reason it still felt as if it was too soon.

“Come Riley, we have to go,” he said as he walked out of the room to regain his composure. He knew that he was falling for his wife but that emotion was something he had to stop and think about because he didn’t know how far he wanted their relationship to go.

“I’m coming,” she said trying not to trip on her heels. He knew how clumsy she was but it gave him more opportunities to catch her before she falls.

“Will you ever get used to wearing shoes that high?”

“Not really,” she said stopping next to him. “But I do know how much you like it when I wear them,” she whispered before walking out of the apartment.

Luckily for them the party was in the city the drive was ten  minutes’ away , since it was a rooftop party.  When they arrived there was a receiving line for the cars the paparazzi waiting outside for the guests.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked her noting that the closer they got the more she looked around to what was happening. 

“It’s just so weird, I’m a normal person,” she said and he just smiled at her.

“Riles, you’re not normal you’re extraordinary,” he said kissing her on her cheek so that he wouldn’t ruin her make-up.

She blushed at his words which only made him smile, when they walked out and smiled for the cameras he kissed her and held her close. It took them twenty minutes to finally make it inside because everyone was eager to see them. It irritated him because he never really liked the press but he continued to deal with them because he needed the press for his business.

Riley couldn’t help but feel like she had walked into a fairy tale, the party was at the top of this glass building, on one side was a structure made of glass, a ballroom on the inside, on the other side was a rooftop garden with fairy lights everywhere. She looked over at Lucas who was watching her face light up, he smiled at her and walked her through the ballroom and handing her a glass of champagne. 

“This place is beautiful,” she said to him as she took a sip of the drink, it tasted like strawberries and she loved it.

“Come on let me introduce you to some people,” he said as he walked her through the room.

Riley met all kinds of people, she watched as they talked to Lucas about projects they wanted to work with him on. Riley met several women who were there with their husbands, each of them extraordinary themselves. The woman she was talking to was a business woman who like Riley hadn’t known what she wanted to do with her life until she met her husband, he was an architect, she works as his business partner, and runs a very tight ship for their warehouse as well as making sure that they get the best deals on everything they buy. When Riley told her about her small business the woman was interested in making a contract with Riley for her company.

“Really?” Riley asked as Mrs. Baldwin offered her the first contract outside of her mother’s café and Lucas’ company.

“Yes Riley, I really would like to taste your food, and if your husband has that much faith in you then it would be as fantastic as you said it would be,” Mrs. Baldwin said smiling at her.

“I’ll send over samples of the food on Wednesday, along with the menu, once everyone has tried it you can send in your orders,” she said excitedly. “Thank you so much.”

The two of them talked longer, so that Riley would be able to get an understanding of how many people worked for her. The company headquarters only had around twenty employees, while the rest of their operations were sourced to other up and coming companies through bids to work for them. When Lucas walked over to her she was beaming at him, he also had a bid with the Baldwin’s over a project he was working on with Farkle.

After a few minutes of talking the two of them walked away smiling at how everything was going. “I’m hungry,” she said before pulling away to grab some food from the spread that had been set up for the party.

Lucas couldn’t believe how lucky he was at that moment as he watched Riley walk away, his luck was just that he had an incredible woman in his life. Riley’s small business was expanding and he was proud of how she handled herself throughout the room. Everyone complimented him on how beautiful his wife was and how energetic she was about meeting them all.

Across the room he saw someone he wished he hadn’t seen, his ex-girlfriend Victoria had walked in, next to her was her flavor of the month. But she was still trying to get back together with him and it annoyed him to no end. They had broken up right after his father’s funeral when she had suggested that he marry her or she would walk away. He knew that her ulterior motive was his inheritance and eventually a stake in the business, the minute she had heard the clause in the will she had jumped at the chance to get what she wanted. Instead he broke it off and stayed away from any woman who crossed his path until he married Riley. 

The minute Victoria spotted him she broke away from her date and walked straight to Lucas, all he wanted was to have a nice night with his wife and eventually go home and have his way with her in those sparkling shoes. He had developed the fetish ever since the wedding between her Uncle and her best friend, even buying her expensive shoes just so she would wear them around the house.

“Luc,” Victoria said acting as though she were surprised to see him there. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“I don’t have time Victoria,” he said wanting to snarl but new that the moment he did it would only motivate the woman.

“Then make time, last time I saw you, well you swore that you would never get married and yet I heard that you married some poor little hussy who has her claws in you.”

“Don’t talk about my wife Victoria.”

“What you don’t want to hear the truth? She’s probably a slut, who sleeps around anyway,” Victoria huffed. “We could’ve had it all Lukey, why did you break up with me?”

Victoria wrapped herself around him and smiled when she saw Riley walking up to them. “Oh no we’ve been caught, I’m sorry sweetie but we’ve been in love for a very long time.”

Lucas wanted to punch the woman, instead he pealed her off of him and walked over to Riley, ignoring Victoria’s pleas. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said to Riley.

“I know, Zay told me about her,” she whispered to him as Victoria once again latched onto Lucas.

“He was mine first,” the woman said but before he could protest Riley looked the tall model straight in the face and sneered.

“I don’t like to get into fights, I’m a good person, but if you don’t get your hands off of my husband I will throw you on the floor so fast,” Riley stopped herself, Lucas knew that she was ramping up to something but she just glared at Victoria. “I don’t care who you are I don’t care what history you have with Lucas but you have no right to attach yourself to another woman’s husband and claim him as your own when he clearly doesn’t want you.”

“Who do you think you are?” Victoria shrieked getting the attention of everyone in the room.

“She’s my wife and you should know better than to do what you’re doing with all of New York’s high society here in the room.”

The woman walked away before Riley could have said anything else, the party had been going on for over two hours and she was ready to call it a night after her encounter . “This party all of a sudden lost its appeal,” she sighed as she looked at her food.

“I’ve been telling you that since before we left the house,” he said smiling at her. “That was something else Riley.”

As he got closer Riley couldn’t help but shiver, “Why don’t we just go home and have our own little party,” she said.

“Hell yeah,” he said to her.

“After I go to the bathroom.”

While he was waiting for Riley to come back, Victoria’s flavor of the month walked up to him and started talking about the prospects of the two of them getting together for a meeting. Lucas told the guy he wasn’t interested, his gut feeling was telling him that there’s something about the guy that he didn’t like.

“But Mr. Friar, it’s a multi-million dollar investment,” the guy said, slowly pushing Lucas’ buttons.

“It’s sounds like insider trading and I want nothing to do with it, why don’t you go find your date so that she would leave me alone,” he growled. 

“Whatever man,” the guy said walking away.

As Riled walked away and followed one of the corridors that lead to the nearest bathroom,  she realized that  no one was there which made her happy because that meant that there was no line. She quickly did her business and took off her underwear before shoving it in her clutch. She was going to slip them into Lucas’ pocket while they were leaving as a surprise. Smiling as she went to wash her hands she was once again confronted by Lucas’ ex standing right behind her. Riley ignored the woman and walked out of the bathroom.

“You’ll never work,” Victoria said as Riley opened the door. “The two of you aren’t even in the same league.”

“I don’t care what you think, just stay away from my husband,” Riley said as she walked out of the bathroom and walked face first into someone. When she looked up she saw another woman rushing towards the bathroom and quickly says her apologies before walking away.

Just as she was going to turn into the ballroom a man slammed into her nearly knocking her over, “Seriously woman watch where you’re going,” his voice made Riley’s hairs stand on end as she slowly realized who was standing in front of her.

There’s no forgetting the face of the man who had stolen everything from you, just because he thought she was a good target. Logan stood there in front of her his face flushed with anger, which was what Riley should have been feeling at that moment but all she wanted to do was to get back to Lucas before Logan realized it was her. But the recognition in his eyes told her that it was too late.

“Well if it isn’t the little cock tease,” he said making her want to run as fast as possible.

“I don’t know who you are,” she said trying to walk around him to get back into the ballroom. Instead he grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the wall. “You are someone I would never be able to forget.”

“Why because I was such a good target for what you wanted?” she said.

“Yes, and now you’ll be an even better target because a little birdie told me you’re married to that arrogant billionaire Lucas Friar.”

“Leave my husband alone you stealing low-life of a man.”

“I don’t need your husband, not yet anyway, I can threaten to have our affair exposed for all the world to see, I can go to the press and have your name dragged through the mud, and when I’m done I will have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“No, because we’ve never had an affair, hell we never even slept together.”

“Yeah but the press wouldn’t know,” he said. 

“But I sure as hell do,” Lucas said pulling Logan off of Riley and punching him in the face. “Stay the fuck away from my wife.”

“What, is it so wrong for two lovers to get together, just like you and Victoria,” Logan said and Riley  now saw that they had conspired to get what they wanted. Logan wanted money, and Victoria wanted Lucas, the only thing standing in their way was Riley.

“We’re not lovers you fucking liar, you have no right to do anything to us and if you come near either one of us again I will make sure the world knows the truth about who you are,” she said trying to sound as threatening as she could. She needed to remember to get Isadora to dig up every one of Logan’s secrets just in case he made good on his promise.

Logan reached over and tried to kiss her but Lucas was faster and grabbed him before punching the man who had ruined everything for her nearly two years before. Standing next to Lucas, Logan was nothing, they didn’t have the same definitions, and he sure as hell didn’t have Lucas’ green eyes.

“Come on Riley let’s go home,” Lucas said pulling her away. At that moment she wished she could have gone back to the bathroom and put her panties back on because she was no longer in the mood. Instead she followed Lucas out the door and towards the elevator, their car was already waiting when they got to the ground floor.

They rode home in silence, neither one of them knew what to say about anything. They couldn’t figure out how their exes had both teamed up with one another or why all of a sudden they were going after them. When they got upstairs Lucas stopped in the living room and didn’t move, Riley went and got herself a glass of water and sat down on the couch.

“We were having such a good time tonight, but apparently the universe had other plans,” she said as she gulped down the ice cold liquid.

“Fuck the universe. Riley I’m sorry about all of this, none of this wouldn’t have happened if we had never gotten married.”

“Don’t you dare try to start a fight right now, we both agreed to this and there’s nothing you can do to get me to stop loving you,” she blurted the last part out without thinking.

“You love me?” he said looking over at her.

“Yes you big dummy, why else would I brave walking around without my underwear just to surprise you, or make love to you on every surface of this house. Or deal with the fact that Zay sleeps over once a week, because as weird as it is I think he just wants to hang out with his best friend, and I’m going to have to find that boy a girlfriend so that he wouldn’t sleep over.”

“Riley,” he said stopping right in front of her. “I love you too.”

That’s all it took for him to let down that final wall he had between them, he just gave into everything his had in him to be with her. Lucas had never wanted someone so much in his entire life, the moment they met was when the magic started, when he slowly let down his guard. He liked her family, even her crazy overprotective father, he liked the talks they had and the meals they shared and at that moment all he wanted was to have her and nothing else.

“I don’t have a condom,” he whispered. “But I want to make love to you right now, I don’t think I’ll make it upstairs.”

“It’s alright, I had my depo shot last month, and I trust you with everything in my heart.”

Lucas for the first time since they had started having sex took it slow, he wanted to remember this moment because it was the moment he had given his heart to a woman without the need to fear the future. He still didn’t know if he wanted a family, because he had lingering fears over what happened to him growing up, but at that moment all he wanted was Riley.

* * *

Riley woke up the next morning in their bed, she didn’t know how she had gotten there, but she didn’t care. Her heart swelled at the confession from the night before. Because of the holiday weekend, she declined any orders for the next day to give her time to recover from the party. She pulled out her phone and called Lucas hoping he wasn’t in any meetings.

“Well hello Riley,” Zay’s voice came over the phone. “To what do I owe this pleasure.”

“Zay is Lucas there?”

“Yeah he’s just finishing up a meeting, he told me that you said you love him.”

Riley felt herself blush over the phone, she hadn’t even had the chance to tell Maya but Lucas had already told Zay, “Maybe,” was all she said.

“I’m coming over after I’m done here we need to have a talk,” Zay said quickly as Lucas’ voice demanding his phone. As she heard the phone shuffle she wondered why Zay wanted to talk to her.

“Hello my wife, how are you feeling?” Lucas asked the moment he had his phone in his hand.

The memory of the night before flashed through her mind along with the soreness between her legs, Lucas had had his way with her, for hours until they had passed out around three in the morning.

“I can hear you blushing on the other side of the phone,” he said. “Let’s have dinner at home tonight . I’ll be home around five, and we can have a repeat of last night.”

“Okay,” was the only thing she could say. 

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye my husband,” she said thinking about what they would do that night. 

Riley decided to do her readings for class while she had the chance, because she knew that the moment that Lucas got home she wouldn’t have the chance to do anything. An hour later the front door opened and Zay stood in the living room staring at her.

“We need to talk about something, especially since you and Lucas are getting serious,” he said as he sat down.

“We weren’t serious before?” she questioned him. “Zay we’re married for gods sake.”

“I know you both met in Vegas, because I slept over here enough to know if Lucas had anyone in his life, you can’t fool me sugar,” he said startling her, she should have known this but it had slipped her mind. “Anyway, I’m glad he found you because you’re just what he needed after the disaster of a life he’s had.”

“He doesn’t really talk about it, I mean I know small things like how his mother got sick and how his father wasn’t around, and when his father died but other than that I have nothing, he knows more about me then I know about him.”

“When we were kids, his parents lived in Texas, and as strange as it sounds they were happy once, I remember when I was four they used to smile all of the time, and one day it stopped. They were truly in love but something wedged itself between them, after that Lucas’ dad started going into full business mode and moved to New York, they didn’t divorce, but Lucas was shuffled between the two of them for years. I remember the day he found his father in bed with the secretary, it was a week after his mother had died and he had moved to New York. He called me screaming that he didn’t want to be there.”

Riley felt tears coming down her eyes, Lucas almost never talked about himself and if he did it was short and he spoke in clipped words.  But she nodded for Zay to go on with whatever he was going to say.

“Lucas was going to that private school in Riverdale when I moved to New York during the eighth grade, my parents sent me there too because it was the best in the city, but the friend I had known growing up no long existed by then. He was hardened by his parent’s lives, by his mother’s death, and his father’s betrayal. He fought with everyone, but still got good grades, because of who his father was he wouldn’t get kicked out unless he did something truly horrifying. He loved his mother but after his dad left her she had become distant except for these small moments where she remembered that she loved him. I found out later that she had a brain tumor and that was partly the reason why she had acted that way towards him.”

Zay stopped for a moment to go and grab some water, but Riley didn’t follow, her heart was breaking for the man she married, the one who only wanted one year and nothing else. The man who all of a sudden began to open up his heart for one person. Her.

“Anyway, he straightened out because he loved the business his family had built, the business itself has been in the family since before the civil war, his father hand nearly laid all of that to ruin just before Lucas graduated middle school. It was what Lucas needed to gain control of his life, so he threw himself into studying, graduating high school as early as he could, graduating college and getting his MBA, I kept up because I wanted him to stop every once and a while and have fun. Those stories about the playboy were spread around by me and mostly because he had always been so busy that when I did get him dates they were all usually on the same day.”

“So none of them were true, all the stories about him being in bed with three girls ,” Riley said about one of the rumors she had found online a month after they had gotten married.

“No, but the rumor just made him even more popular, not only with guys but with girls, it was weird. That all changed when he started working at the company, he actually started at the bottom until he found the embezzling shit that some of the investors were playing at, including his Uncle. That’s what probably killed his father, the fact that he had let it all go to shit and he couldn’t really fix it, Lucas worked his ass off to get the company to where it was.”

“Where does Victoria play into all of this, I mean you told me before that you didn’t like her and how much of a bitch she was, and after yesterday I believe it trust me but in the grand scheme of things how does she fit in?”

“Victoria and Lucas started dating a year before his dad died , she had her sights on him because of who he was, she wanted to be the socialite house wife of a rich man, but Lucas was just with her because he wanted to see if he could find someone to keep him warm at night. When his father died she gave him that stupid ultimatum because she knew about the will and what his father had wanted, and Lucas almost fell for it until one day he found her in the arms of another man.”

Something in Riley’s mind clicked, this all happened around the same time that Logan had been in her life, it was no coincidence that the two of them had known each other, or that they had gone to the party together. Lucas had explained that they had walked in together, but he ignored her until she found her way to him, and Logan had wanted something to do with some insider trading deal only to use Riley as bait instead.

“I know who the other guy is,” she said turning to Zay. “Did he have reddish blonde hair?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“Because he was at the party last night with Victoria except his hair was more blonde, the red was almost completely gone.”

“Am I missing something?”

“Yeah, it seems that the same guy you had Isadora look up, the guy who swindled me out of my savings, is with Victoria, they were trying to pull the ultimate con, but I was just the means to getting money, Lucas was the means to getting a whole new life.”

“Shit Riley,” Zay said looking at her. “I need to talk to your mother about this, we’re building a case against him to get your money back, and maybe even throw him in jail but if Victoria is involved  this might run deeper. Victoria isn’t poor, she grew up in an upper middle class family, she just couldn’t break into the ranks of life where Lucas was.”

The two of them talked a while longer, even calling her mother when they had put everything together. They worked through the details of it all but it was just speculation at that point, they needed proof beyond reasonable doubt. When Zay left they had enough information to dig through and he said that they would talk again when they have more solid evidence. Riley was angry, at life for having her and Lucas go through what they both had, at the people who had taken advantage of them, and at how it had taken them so long to find each other even though they had lived in the same city for years.

Lucas walked into the penthouse to the sounds of banging, Riley was in the kitchen and it sounded like she was angry. “What could have happened to make my wife mad?” he said as he walked towards her.

“Just angry about last night, but now that you’re here everything will be better,” she said but he knew she was hiding something.

He didn’t want secrets he remembered how heartbroken his mother had been when she found out about his father’s affairs, he hadn’t known at that age what was happening but the look on his mother’s face was enough to tell him something was wrong. 

“No secrets Riley,” he said to her hoping that she would spill what was bothering her.

She sighed and looked at him, her eyes wary about what she was about to tell him, “Zay came over, and we got to talking, and well we discovered something,” she said before launching into the details of it all, when he had heard the description of the man who had been with Victoria, and Riley’s explanation about the possibility that they were both swindled at the same time, except Lucas had gotten out where Riley had lost everything, he became angry enough for the both of them.

“Life fucking sucks,” he said pulling her close. 

“I have a feeling that we were meant to meet for a long time, and instead other people got in the way, or our families got in the way,” she said looking at him. “I have this dream where we get to go to school together, and we have the same friends, Zay’s there and Maya, Farkle and even Isadora. I’ve had dreams where we talk all of the time, important talks about our lives, and my father is our teacher and he teaches us life lessons. Instead reality sets in and reminds me that Charlie happened, and Logan happened, Victoria happened and even our own families happened.”

“That sounds like a wonderful life, but you’re right about reality setting in and ruining everything, but we’re together now and we have our lives to make up for it,” he said smiling, he had wondered if they could make it work together but he wanted to take it slow.

“You want a life with me?”

“With you I’ll take what I can get, we’ll go slow have a real relationship, learn to trust each other and see where it goes. I can’t imagine being anywhere without you Riley, I’ve known that for a while.”

“God I love you, and it I wasn’t making dinner I would ask for you to well… fuck me against the dining room table, since it’s the only place we haven’t done anything, but dinner is ready and Zay will be here any moment, along with Maya and Josh, they’re bringing him a girl to meet.”

“Damn it Zay,” Lucas grumbled. “I like it when you’re being assertive it makes me want to do anything you ask, but I guess it will have to wait.”

“Well for now this is all you get,” she said pulling him down for a kiss, only to have him grab her and push her up against the counter. 

Lucas grabbed her from behind and lifted her up until she had wrapped her legs around him as they kissed. He slowly moved his hands up and down her back pulling her shirt out of her jeans and sliding his hand up until he found the clasp of her bra, but he remembered people were coming over so instead he pulled the shirt up to reveal one of Riley’s lace bras, he had brought her more during the summer, in styles that hugged her body and made him want to rip them off. He grabbed one of her breast and started slowly torturing her while kissing her hard against the counter.

“I want you so bad,” she said her voice a hoarse whisper. He growled as he kissed her neck slowly nibbled his way down her body until he had latched onto her nipple and started sucking on it, biting it little by little until it peaked. He had forgotten that guests were coming until the front door slammed opened and someone’s voice broke through the haze.

“What up losers,” Maya’s voice broke through and Riley stiffened before unwrapping herself from him.

“I have to go upstairs for a minute,” he growled, saying a quick hello to Maya and Josh as they walked inside with their friend.

Riley quickly pulled down her shirt and straightened herself up just as Maya walked into the kitchen.

“What’s up with the cowboy, he kind of grunted something and ran upstairs,” Maya said to her before taking in her flushed face. “Oh I interrupted something didn’t I?”

“I’m not answering that,” Riley said trying to gain some composure over herself. “Help me get some drinks and you can introduce me to this girl you want Zay to meet.”

“Okay but one day you’re going to have to tell me what it’s like to sleep with the billionaire, or else I’m going to call ring power and force it out of you.”

“Whatever, just help me,” Riley said as she opened the freezer door to take out the wine she had put in the chiller at the bottom. She had kept her head inside the freeze for an extra minute just to cool herself down.

When they walked into the living room Josh was  sitting with a beautiful woman, with dark eyes and black hair.  She  was wearing a yellow sundress that complimented her body shape. Riley assessed her as she poured the wine, thinking that Zay was about to meet his match.

“Hi I’m Riley,” she said to the woman who looked up at her and smiled.

“I’m Vanessa, and I hear you have a friend who’s perfect for me, or at least that’s what Maya keeps saying.”

“I’m right and you know it,” Maya said taking the wine and drinking it.

The door opened as Riley took a sip of her own wine, as Isadora and Farkle walked in, Zay was behind them and they all had a look on their faces that told Riley that they had figured something out. Instead they all just shook their heads to say that they don’t want to talk about it at that moment.

“Zay, just the man I wanted to see,” Maya said getting up and dragging him over to the couch. “Isaiah Babineau x , I’d like for you to meet my friend Vanessa Kinney.”

“Hi I’m Zay,” he said, Riley could see a blush appearing on his skin which she hadn’t thought was possible since he usually just said what was on his mind.

“Hi I’m Vanessa,” she said back smiling at him.

“Aww this is so cute,” Riley said without thinking, but shut her mouth when everyone just looked at her. “Sorry, I’m going to go back into the kitchen and put the food into the serving dishes.”

She ran out of the room before anything else could have happened and got to work, Farkle joined her and helped her put the food on the table. 

“We need to talk to you and Lucas before we leave,” he said as Lucas appeared in the archway dressed in a blue shirt and jeans. Riley’s body automatically reacted to the sight of him, but she knew that they had guest and couldn’t do anything about it.

“What do you need to talk about?” he answered as Isadora walked in. They had left Zay with Vanessa, Josh and Maya to talk.

“We got a heads up on a story the papers are running tomorrow,” Isadora said looking at the two of them.

“We tried to get it pulled but apparently it’s too juicy for them to give up, and it’s about Riley,” Farkle said as she looked over at him.

“What about me I’m the most boring person in the history of the world?” she said trying to figure out what the newspapers would want with her.

“Someone doctored photos of you having an affair with some guy, and from the looks of the picture of the guy well it’s Logan,” Farkle said looking between the two of them.

“He made the threat real,” Lucas said after a moment. “Is it obvious that the pictures are fake?”

“Only to someone who has the training to see it ,” Isadora said. “If they don’t they would just use it to drag Riley through the mud.”

“Shit,” Lucas said. “I need a meeting set up with Mrs. Matthews, we need to do some damage control, and we need all the leverage we can to get this shit fixed now.”

Riley could feel her ears ringing, Logan wanted to take everything she had, all because Lucas wouldn’t deal with him, and to do it he was going to take her down and make sure that no one would want her at all. “Why me?” she whispered. “I never did anything to him, to any of them.”

“You’re just an easy target, you’ve lived a normal life and you’ve worked hard for it, yet they knew you were vulnerable and that’s why they had picked you in the first place. You marrying Lucas sealed the deal on what they wanted,” Farkle said trying tom comfort her. 

“We don’t have to have this dinner,” Lucas said but she shook her head. She didn’t want to have dinner anymore but she wanted Zay to have his chance with Vanessa.

“We’ll eat and then we’ll set up meetings and interviews and anything else we need to do to end this but we’re going to end this,” she said determined to have a little normalcy from the terrible situation they were in.

“Okay,” Lucas said as he pulled her in close and waited until her heart wasn’t trying to break apart. 


	11. Exposed

When dinner was over Zay walked Vanessa home, while Lucas had Maya and Josh go home because he didn’t want them there when the press descended on them the next morning. The first person they called was Riley’s mother who rushed over from the office with the files on the case they were building up on Logan, only now they had to add Victoria to the list.

“How are we going to do this?” Zay asked the moment he had gotten back. Lucas watched Riley’s eyes widen at the fact that they were going to go all out on everyone who hurt her.

“Riley I know you might not want to be the center of attention but we need to do this or else it’s going to get worse.

“But I didn’t do anything, none of it, I’ve been with Lucas all summer and when I wasn’t with him I was with Auggie, or Maya, even Richard who drove me around whenever we went to buy ingredients,” she said and he knew that she was trying not to cry and failing. He pulled her close and looked at everyone in the room.

Zay liked Riley, like a sister he had gained the moment Lucas married her, who gave him cookies when he asked. Farkle who had known her the longest and would do anything to help her even create an algorithm that he would have to sell to the government after they were done because they were using it to find out everything they could. Her mother who would do anything for her child even find a way to define a court order for what Farkle was doing so that the genius didn’t end up in jail. Iz who had slowly become friends with Riley and came over for girls’ night with Maya once every other week, especially when Lucas had to go out of town.

He took a deep breath, “I need an injunction filed  against any suit that Logan or James whatever his name is and Victoria would try and file against us,” he said turning to Zay and Mrs. Matthews. “I need you to write up a cease and desist order against any newspaper or website that would publish the story without attaining the facts before printing. The penalty is set at a million dollars for everyday that the photos and the story is up for publication, make sure there’s clause against any future story.”

“Isn’t that too much?” Riley asked but her mother shook her head.

“If we file this by the end of the night the story might never see the light of day,” Mrs. Matthews said. “I’m going to go file this right now, Mr. Babineaux I need to borrow for a few hours.”

“Yes ma’am,” Zay said as the two of them got up but Lucas stopped them.

“If Logan tries anything I need a full suit against him for defamation of character and invasion of privacy, and whatever else you can throw at him including criminal charges for insider trading and stealing.”

“What are you talking about Lucas?” Zay asked.

“During the party he tried to get me to invest in something, saying it was going to go big but no one knew about it. I’m guessing this is how he can afford his fancy place, and Victoria’s whims.”

“Shit this guy is a piece of work,” Zay said as he followed Mrs. Matthews out the door.

Lucas turned to Farkle and Iz, “They’re going to need evidence, I want you both to work out of my office here, bring your computers and some clothes . Get everything you can find, including anyone associated with them, if we’re going to do this we’re going to need everything in our arsenal.”

“We’ll be back soon,” Iz said pulling Farkle away with her.

Lucas finally turned to his wife, sadness in his eyes, her life had been flipped in a matter of hours, if only they hadn’t gone to that damn party. “Riley if this story breaks you may have to postpone school for the semester.”

“I figured that part out, and that’s not what pisses me off,” she sighed. “I’m mad because once again he’s ruined my life, and only because he has this urge to do something stupid.”

“Is it possible to change your classes to online courses?” he said trying to find a way for her to continue her dream.

“Maybe, I’ll call in the morning and we can talk to someone, I’m going to need your pull in order to do it, they like you.”

“How do you know that?”

“The minute they saw my face they wanted to find a way to get you to donate, or at least speak at the school .”

“I will do anything if it makes this easier for you,” he said wrapping his arm around her.

“Can we just sit here together, nothing else,” she said and he nodded.

“Anything you want.”

As they sat their Riley worried about the connections she had made at the party, and about how it would affect the deal she was trying to garner from the Baldwin’s. She worried about what this would do to Lucas, although they had passed the ninety-day mark on what the board of directors wanted she didn’t know how they would handle a scandal. She worried about how many people Logan had swindled after her, or even before her. She had thought so much about it that she didn’t want to think anymore, she just wanted to sleep.

“I’m going to bed,” she said getting up and walking away. Their lives had just started making sense and now it was in shambles and she just wanted to cry herself to sleep and hopefully wake up and see that it was all gone.

Lucas had gone to bed shortly after she did but she knew that he wasn’t sleeping, he only pulled her close and held her as she cried. They both fell asleep around midnight when Riley was too exhausted to cry anymore, and Lucas was tired of everything else.

When they woke up the next morning the story was all over the news, Lucas had even given a statement to the press in front of the building saying that it wasn’t true. But all Riley could do was watch everything like she wasn’t even there. By midmorning the school had agreed to letting her do her classes online and worked with her professors to make it happen, all because Lucas had offered funding for a new business school.  When her mother called she asked Lucas to come by her office with Riley to sign some paperwork for the lawsuits. The papers were already issuing apologizes and pulling the story, but the damage had already been done, they all had to pay the fines because Topanga made sure that they received the paperwork long before the printing time and they ignored it citing freedom of press.

Now they all had to deal with the wrath of her mother and she couldn’t figure out why they even went against her. The lie and the pictures were out there, none of them were real, and they couldn’t figure out how they even got that type of image. Isadora solved the mystery just before they left to go meet with her mother.

“They took a bunch of photos and had them superimposed on top of each other, it’s a lot of work but if you know how to use the program it’s easy,” Isadora said giving them a file with all of the photos including a frame by frame page of how it was done. One of them showed the fallacies in the photoshoped photo. The last one showed the definitive proof that the body of the woman wasn’t Riley’s all because Riley had a scar on her hand from when she had burned herself cooking when she was nineteen. The skin on the woman was perfect.

“Wow, you’re good,” Riley said putting the files in Lucas’s suitcase as they left. “She’s really good.”

“Yes she is, and so is Farkle, he emailed your mother this morning a list of names tied to Logan, including my Uncle,” Lucas sighed. “My family is going to be the death of me.”

“That’s why you have me to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

He kissed her as the elevator descended, when it opened in the garage the press was standing there waiting for the scoop only to have an image of the couple kissing. They asked questions, and Lucas yelled no comment, and to call their lawyer. Once they reach the office where Zay and her mother work, Riley felt all of her fears slowly creeping up. Zay took them to a conference room to wait until her mother finished with the paperwork. 

Lucas could tell that Riley was worried, it was her life on the line, their lives were stuck in the middle of everything and it didn’t make him happy, but he wanted to be strong for her because she had helped him slowly get to where he was. He was healing from the pain of his family’s  legacy and she calmed him down whenever he wanted to go over the edge. Marrying her was the best thing he could have done.

“I’m going to see what’s taking so long,” he said as he got up. “Do you want me to bring you some water or something?”

“Yes please,” she said before looking down at her hands.

“It will be alright, trust me, your mother alone will fix this,” he said hugging her from behind. “She’s a shark remember.”

Riley laughed and nodded, Zay walked in and sat down with her to go over the files that Iz had sent with them, and to take pictures of where it was obvious that the photos were doctored. Lucas walked out and went to where Mrs. Matthews office was at the end of the corridor, but before he got there he found her sitting with one of the senior attorneys in the office.

“I need you to represent my daughter in a suit that’s being filed against her,” the man said looking at Topanga. “I haven’t seen the papers yet but she said that her and her boyfriend were served with them this morning. She’s bringing them over this afternoon .”

“What does the lawsuit say?” Mrs. Matthews asked. Lucas knew that she would get the facts, he had worked with her long enough to know how she did her job.

“Apparently it’s something about defamation of character, along with theft of property, and several other charges, my daughter is a good woman who works hard she wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“What about her boyfriend?” 

“He’s a good man, an investment banker working on Wall Street, he wouldn’t do anything like that either,” the man said but Lucas was trying to wonder why the man looked familiar and it hit him like a ton of bricks, he was Victoria’s father, they had only met a few times when he was introduced to the law firm but he hadn’t seen him in a while.

Lucas opened the door and stared at the man, “That lawsuit isn’t moving sir, and I will do everything in my power to make sure of that.”

“Lucas what are you doing?” Mrs. Matthews said standing up from her seat.

“Sorry Mrs. Matthews, but his man is the father of the woman who’s trying to ruin my life, my wife’s life.”

Mrs. Matthews looked over at the man she had been talking to and shook her head. “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t represent your daughter or her boyfriend.”

“This isn’t an option Mrs. Matthews, this is my law firm and I will assign you the case, I don’t care if it’s against your wishes. Mr. Friar has nothing to do with who I put on the case.”

“No but I do have a say, you see your daughter and her boyfriend issued a direct attack against my daughter and her husband, the lawsuit was filed by me late last night because of what your daughter has done,” she said, Lucas knew that the shark lawyer was about to eviscerate the man who ran the firm. “And if you would care to remember that Mr. Friar over here is your biggest client, and if you lose him and his business you would lose a lot more than a pretty face.”

“What do you mean Mrs. Matthews,” the man said standing up.

“Lucas just signed the papers for a multi- million-dollar contract that when finished would give this firm a hefty sum of money,  so of course if your daughter decides to stay on course and attack my child and the man she married then you’re not only going to lose that deal you’re going to lose me as well,” she took a deep breath before continuing. “I won’t hesitate to start my own firm, and I have a pretty large client list who would follow me, remember I’m your top attorney here, my reputation is something I’ve worked hard to gain in the last twenty years. Don’t cross me.”

The man sat down at his desk, Lucas knew that she had taken him down a notch because Mrs. Matthews scared him more than Mr. Matthews. She walked out the door with Lucas behind her. When they were far enough away she sighed.

“I don’t really want to start my own firm but if that old coot wants to go up against me I will do everything in my power to take him down,” she said.

“I will follow you, and I know a few people who are always looking for a good lawyer so you would have the business, I’ll even give you an entire floor in my building if you want it,” he said knowing that this woman was family and like Riley he wanted to help. He also wanted to stay on her good side because she was scary.

“I’ll think about it,” she said smiling at him. “You’re a good man Lucas, I’m glad my daughter fell in love with you and married you and not some sleazy.”

“High praise,” he smiled. “I’ll take it because at least someone likes me, your husband is still bitter.”

“Cory will be bitter until the next thing happens, he’s very attached to Riley.”

“So am I ,” he said smiling at his mother-in-law.

When they reached the office where Riley and Zay were seated, Lucas couldn’t help but smile. She was smiling again, and it probably had something to do with Zay but he didn’t care, all that mattered to him was that she was smiling again. He kissed the top of her head and sat down next to her.

“Is it true?” she asked.

“What?” he looked at them wondering what they were talking about.

“That you rode a sheep, and disgraced your family?”

“Jesus Zay, why are you telling her that story?”

“Because to this day, it’s a funny story,” Zay said smiling. “I have everything I need, and Iz called saying something about bank records and that we may need a warrant for them.”

“I’m on it,” Mrs. Matthews said pulling out her phone and calling a federal judge that she knew would hear her case for the warrant.

“Let’s go home,” Riley said and he nodded. As they walked out Logan and Victoria were walking in. They both had smug looks on their faces, but neither had seen Lucas or Riley. His first instinct was to punch the guy instead he pulled Riley into a corner so that they wouldn’t be seen. Lucas pulled out his phone in case they said anything incriminating, making sure it was set to silent he hit record.

“My daddy will take care of everything you’ll see, and in the end Lucas will leave her and I will get everything I’ve ever wanted,” Victoria said. Lucas knew better, and she was going to have the shock of her life.

“You only deal with me when you don’t have a guy at your side, even though I’m as successful as that Friar guy,” Logan said, Riley laughed into his shirt.

“Well hon, he’s the elite and you’re not, but don’t worry I’ll take care of you.” 

“Victoria,” her father yelled from down the corridor. “I have a bone to pick with you, young lady.”

“Yes daddy? Did you make the lawsuit go away?”

“No I didn’t because you went after my firm’s biggest client and now he’s threatening to pull out of a huge deal because you decided you wanted to get back together with him and it backfired. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I should get what I want and not some hussy he picked up off the street,” she said looking at her father with puppy dog eyes. “I mean wouldn’t you want what’s best for me?”

“Not at this cost, they’re building a case against you, my biggest attorney has threatened to leave and take her client list with her, including Mr. Friar all because you went after her daughter.”

“I don’t care I deserve him,” she whined.

“And I deserve a daughter who knows when to let go of someone, you’ve been separated for two years, you and James have been together this whole time, settle for what you have and not what you can’t.”

“But daddy,” she whined as they walked away.

“Let’s take the stairs,” Riley said pulling him through the door they were standing next to.  When they reached the first floor they were both sweating and exhausted. Lucas send the video to Zay to make sure his friend had a copy.

“I didn’t know her father worked there,” Riley said once they were in the car.

“I knew but I never dealt with him so I hadn’t put two and two together until now.”

“What did he mean his biggest attorney was threatening to leave?”

“I offered you mother an entire floor at FIC to build her own law firm, it would probably make my life easier, but it was mostly for her sake, the minute she found out that it was his daughter that went after you she went up to bat and swung so hard I think the man would have loss his teeth if it were possible.”

“My mother has always wanted to build her own practice, especially if they do a lot of pro-bono cases, if she leaves I know she would have a lot of clients, they all love her.”

“I would stick with her, she’s scary.”

Riley laughed for a moment, “My dad used to call her Godzilla because she was scary.”

Lucas laughed at the nickname, “He really loves her if he’s not scared of her.”

“They’ve been married since birth, my brother was the same with Ava and they’re still together, I wish I had that but my life took a different turn, and in the end I found you.”

He grabbed her hand and kissed it, “What do you say we go up to the cabin, Farkle and Iz are working in the apartment, and I need a little alone time with you.”

“As much as I would love that I have to make samples early tomorrow morning, remember the Baldwin’s wanted them to see if they wanted to sign up for the service.”

“Alright but we’re getting a vacation once all of this is done, a real vacation.”

“Deal,” she said smiling. “Plus if we do it in the closet Farkle wouldn’t be able to hear us. Although I am partial to building a secret room in there in case of over night guest.”

“Are you suggesting we build a room just so we can have sex? Because if you are I will call a contractor in the morning and have it done by the end of the week.”

“Just drive home, and no, I was just joking, but maybe if we ever decide to move to a house, well our room could have that,” she went quiet and Lucas wished she had said yes to going to the cabin.

* * *

As the days went by the case against Logan and Victoria became solid, and Lucas knew that it was a matter of time before they received calls for them to drop the whole thing. The press had picked up on the case and started asking for interviews, Lucas said that they would hand over written statements but they wouldn’t be on camera, they wanted their privacy. The Baldwin’s didn’t care about the lawsuit mainly because Mrs. Baldwin had taken a liking to Riley, Lucas knew that it was all about his wife’s charms and her ability to talk to people, she was going to be a wonderful business woman.

A knock on his office door brought him back to the reality that he was at work, and he should be doing his job. Iz wasn’t there because she was still doing damage control over the lawsuit so he didn’t know who was there until the door opened revealing his Uncle standing at the door.

“You’re looking as stupid as your father,” the man said. “Why the hell did you marry some nothing?”

“I don’t care about your opinion, get out of my office and out of my building. I own your shares and I’m not giving them back. I worked too hard to fix the shit storm you left behind.”

“It was my money, this was my company just as much as it was my brother’s you can’t take me out.”

“I did and I would do it again if it meant saving Pappy Joe’s legacy.”

“And how does your wife factor into this, I mean you married her and all of a sudden you got everything, I swear I should set you straight just like I did with your father. You look at that bitch the same way he looked at that slut of a mother of yours.”

It took a moment for Lucas to register his words, because the moment he called Riley a bitch all he saw was red. “What do you mean you set my father straight?”

“He was supposed to marry some rich socialite instead he shacked up with that woman, claiming it was love, so I told him that she was having an affair and that you weren’t really his kid, because she only told him she was pregnant so that she could hook him.”

“Get out,” Lucas said, he remembered when he was little the looks his parents had given one another, but he thought that it had just faded over time. Now he knew the truth. “Get the fuck out of here before I call the police for trespassing, you’re not allowed to come back here and if I see your fucking face I will make sure that you end up in prison for how much money you stole.”

“Whatever, just remember this when that little wife of yours ends up pregnant, she will only do it to make you settle,” he said before leaving. 

Lucas called security and told them to escort him out and to make sure he wasn’t allowed back in. As he sat there he thought back to something his mother had once said to him, “Your daddy swears you’re not his, but you are you have the same eyes, and the same smile.”

She had said it a few days before she had died, and he hadn’t remembered because the grief of losing her was too much for a kid to handle. His father had done a paternity test in the days after and then left Lucas to deal with living in a new city with no one around. Had his father grieved when his mother died?

He couldn’t ask the man, he was dead, but Lucas wondered if there were answers to the questions somewhere. And if there were, did he want to know the truth?


	12. Sick

Riley could tell that something was bothering Lucas, ever since he had gotten home from work two days ago he’s been a little distant. With the lawsuit and their jobs, they hardly saw each other if it wasn’t involved with either. She missed and she wants to talk to him but she doesn’t know how, so she waits until he’s ready to talk but a week passes and nothing. Maya had come over to help her with some desserts she wanted to try and make for the business and she couldn’t help but confide with her friend what she was afraid of.

“Maya,” she says while looking down at the batter she’s mixing.

“Yeah Honey,” Maya says looking up at her with those blue eyes.

“Did Josh ever become distant all of a sudden?”

“You mean like he would stop talking to me, well there was that one year after I kissed him, but I don’t think that’s what you mean. Is something wrong Riley?”

“Well about a week and a half ago, well Lucas came home with this look on his face, you know the look, like someone kicked a puppy in front of you. And since then he hasn’t really talked to me and I miss that. We used to talk,” she said feeling dejected.

“Have you asked him? You know instead of being Riley and trying to wait until everything falls apart before you fix it.”

“Maybe I should talk to him tonight, I’m just afraid, there’s so much happening and I’m scared that it finally got to be too much.”

“Riley,” Maya grabbed her face with both hands and looked her in the eye. “Talk to him.”

“Okay Peaches,” she said smiling. 

When they finished with everything Riley packed up sample boxes for everyone to try, one box for Maya and Josh, her parents, Farkle and Isadora, and even Zay and Vanessa because they had a date that night and Riley needed to get Vanessa ready for Zay’s sugar addiction.  Riley sent Lucas a text message about dinner as  Maya took the boxes from her and delivered them to everyone while Riley sat in her living room waiting for Lucas to come home. She set up candles, and their dinner around the coffee table, the desserts in the middle and a blanket for the floor. She even started a fire in the fireplace , opening the window in case it got too hot in the room. She waited on the couch until she fell asleep waiting for him to come home.

Lucas had stayed in the office longer than he wanted to, he had gotten a phone call from the lawyers in the case, since they had  so much evidence against both Victoria and Logan, including the amount that had been taken from Riley. The lawyers wanted to talk about putting together a deal, Lucas wanted jail time for Logan regardless of anything the man was guilty of several crimes. They had come to an agreement in which Logan and Victoria had to pay Riley over three million in damages, on top of the money Logan had taken and the interest that she would have accumulated from her savings account.

Logan was also put on a federal watch list, in case he would think about committing the same crime against someone else, or even for insider trading. As well as a restraining order against both Logan and Victoria, so that they wouldn’t be able to be where Riley was or where he was. Victoria had protested the restraining order because she runs in the same circle as Lucas, but he didn’t budge on it. It was either the restraining order or they went to trial and someone would  defiantly end up in prison. When he was done with the call he had spoken to Riley’s mother a little longer. She was interested in opening her own practice after all, because the tension in the office had become too much since the lawsuit. Lucas said he would open up a space for her to have, but she’d have to take Zay with her.  Mrs. Matthews also said that she wouldn’t take her client list, and told him that it would be different if they willingly followed her and that included him, but Lucas automatically told her that he would continue doing business with her.

His phone rang as he was finishing up, “Hey Zay what’s up?”

“I just wanted you to tell Riley thanks for me, she gave me and Vanessa these desserts to try out and they were amazing, Vanessa has a big sweet tooth so we were both happy to try everything in the box,” Zay finished and that’s when Lucas remembered that Riley wanted to have dinner with him that night.

“Shit,” he said into the phone. “Zay I’ll tell her what you said, don’t come over tonight.”

Lucas hung up the phone and rushed out of the office, so much had happened that he had overlooked the time. He missed talking to Riley but because his Uncle had said what he did it made him afraid of hurting her like his parents had hurt each other. Only he had done it without thinking. Richard was waiting for him in the garage and he was grateful that he didn’t have to drive. He was so tired he didn’t know if he would have made it home without falling asleep at the wheel. When they got to his building he rushed to the elevator and went upstairs, he opened the doors to see Riley asleep on the couch, the fireplace was lit but the candles on the table weren’t.

He walked over to her and sat down, looking at her sleeping face, he brushed the few stray hairs that had fallen from her ponytail and kissed her on the lips. She stirred away and opened her eyes to look at him.

“Riley I’m so sorry, something came up at the last minute and that one thing turned into two, and I’m so sorry,” he said taking her hand.

“It’s okay, it’s just that,” she sighed as she  put her head on his shoulder. “I feel like there’s this wedge in between us right now, we don’t really talk like we used to and you seem distant.”

“We can talk now,” he said. “We can eat and talk and make up for lost time.”

“Okay,” she said. “It’s a good thing I only made salads and not something that required heating.”

“I’ll go grab a bottle of wine, and we can talk.”

He felt guilty that they hadn’t really talked, he missed her, the way she would giggle when she found something funny, how she would make sure he had breakfast before he left, or when they cook together. He missed everything about her.

“So,” he said as he walked back. “I have some news to share.”

“Is it good or bad?”

“Both, more good than bad though.”

“Okay lay it on me,” she said as she took the wine bottle from his hands to open it up.

“The first piece of the news is that we’ve settled the lawsuit,” he said watching her face as she did a double take. “There’s a restraining order in place so that neither Logan or Victoria can come near us. They have to pay you the money that he stole, and for damages for when the story leaked. But neither one of them get jail time.”

“I don’t care about the jail time, I don’t want that part hanging over my head. I also don’t want the money,” she stopped and looked back up at him. “I just want the money they took from me and that’s it. I can donate the rest to charity.”

“That’s nice of you, I’ll have Iz look up a list of charities that you might be interested in,” he said as he started eating his salad. “There’s one more part to this that you might want to hear.”

“It’s not something weird is it because honestly there’s only so many surprises a girl can take.”

“No, it’s about your mother.”

“What about my mom?”

“Well we talked after we finished with the lawyers, and she decided to take me up on the offer to start her own practice, my only condition was that she had to take Zay with her, I don’t want him anywhere near their old firm .”

“Really,” she squealed and jumped up to hug him. “You won’t regret it, she would probably have move lawyers working for her than anything.”

“I don’t doubt that, she’s a very good lawyer.”

“Anything else?”

“My Uncle came by a couple of days ago,” he said to her, and went onto an explanation of what the man had said about his parents, omitting the fact that he had called Riley a bitch. 

“He doesn’t sound like a nice man if he was willing to stop your parents from being happy,” she said when he finished. “Lucas, don’t stop talking to me please. It worries me.”

“I won’t I was just overthinking everything,” he yawned. “Come on let’s go to bed, I’m so tired.”

“I bet, you’ve been holding the world on your shoulders forgetting that I’m here to help you whenever you need me.”

They turned off the fire and cleaned up the living room, Lucas made sure to  lock the windows and the door. As they walked upstairs Riley took his hand and put it around her shoulders, she yawned as she did it. They got ready for bed without talking, both of them tired, they snuggled up to one another and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

* * *

Riley woke up the next day feeling like she was in a sauna, when she looked over at Lucas she noticed that he was sweating. The minute she touched his forehead she knew he was sick, he had carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and this is what he gets in return. She quickly got up and went to the bathroom to wash up, and then she sent Isadora a message that Lucas was sick. When she got back he was moaning in his sleep and she was worried that he would have to go to the doctor.

“Hey Lucas,” she whispered trying to wake him up. “I’m going to go get you some medicine from the pantry, and I’ll be back with some water and some food for you.”

He didn’t say anything, he hadn’t even woken up, instead he mumbled something she didn’t understand and rolled over to her side of the bed, hugging her pillows. 

“You’re just too cute,” she said as she rushed downstairs. She made runny oatmeal in case he had a sore throat, and put it on a tray along with some cold and flu medicine, orange juice, even crackers just to cover her bases. When she got back upstairs Lucas was saying something, and moving around a lot, she set the tray down and took his hand. He immediately calmed down and went back to sleep.

Riley worked from her laptop, sitting on a chair next to Lucas so he would know that she was there. She made sure all the bills had been paid, and gave Richard the next few days off so that he wouldn’t get sick.

“Riley don’t leave me,” Lucas said and she looked at him. He was saying things in his sleep and it worried her that he was afraid of her leaving.

She took his hand and kissed it, “I’m not going anywhere.”

It went on like that until the next morning, she made sure he got up to eat, made him take a shower and use the bathroom. Whenever he was asleep he would call out to her, afraid that she had left him, but she assured him that she  was not going anywhere.

She worked on her homework, and cancelled all the deliveries for the business because of illness, she made sure that he wouldn’t be alone even for a second. When he woke up he looked at her and smiled.

“Thank you,” he said his voice hoarse, she handed him some water and he drank it.

“No problem, it’s part of the vows,” she said smiling. She was tired but she wanted to make sure that they had food to eat. “I’m going to cook some soup so rest, I’ll be back soon.”

She set the soup to cook, adding everything she liked to eat and left it to simmer in the crockpot so that she wouldn’t have to check it too often and she went to sit down on the couch. She hadn’t realized that she had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for the food to cook.

Lucas was feeling a lot better, Riley had made sure that he had everything when he couldn’t do anything for himself.

“God, I love that woman,” he said wondering where she was, he had fallen asleep after she left, but it seemed as though she hadn’t come back.

He went downstairs to look for her, only to find her asleep on the couch , he wondered if she had slept at all while she was taking care of him. He knelt down to wake her only to notice that she had gotten his fever.

“Shit,” he said picking her up and taking her to bed, he took off her socks and jeans, he changed her clothes, into a simple t-shirt and his boxer shorts and tucked her in. He remembered she had said something about medicine in the pantry and went to check only grab the house phone and dialed her parent’s house.

“Hey Lucas,” Mrs. Matthews said from the other line. “Is there anything you need?”

“Yeah, Riley’s sick and usually she’s so organized with everything, but I’ve never taken care of someone when they were sick. Is there anything that Riley always liked when she was growing up that would make her feel better?” he asked hoping that she would help him.

“There’s a couple of things, she once wrote a story about a little princess who was lost she wrote it when she was seven, I used to read it to her whenever she got sick. My daughter the hopeless romantic was always talking about how her prince would come for her,” she laughed over the  phone before continuing. “The book is still here, so I’ll stop by with it and some soup for her to eat.”

“Alright, I’m going to call into the office and wait until you come over,” he said. 

As he was about to hang up she called out to him, “Lucas, one more thing, she hasn’t gotten this sick in years but when she was little and her fever started to be too much for her she used to lock herself in the closet, something about the monsters getting to her. So keep an eye on her.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said before hanging up the phone. He dialed Iz to tell her he wasn’t coming in but she said Riley already called the day before, and she hadn’t been sure when he would get better.

“I cleared out your schedule for the week, so you can both get better, and Lucas tell her thank you for the pastries she sent over the other day.”

“I will, thanks Iz,” he said.

“No problem boss,” she hung up before he could say anything else. He realized how much influence Farkle was having on her. She had become easier to talk to, she smiled more often and she didn’t drown herself in work.

He check ed in on Riley and put a cold towel over her head, she slept soundly  as he did his work from his side of the bed.  She would snuggle up to his leg, but he was worried by how warm she was, even though she shivered as if she was cold. Her mother sent him a message that she was on her way up so that she wouldn’t wake Riley up. Lucas slowly moved making sure that she wouldn’t wake up, when he got to the door, Mrs. Matthews stood in the doorway with a bag smiling at him.

“We’re you sick too?” she asked and Lucas nodded.

“Mine only lasted for a day, I still feel a little sick but not as much, but when I woke up Riley was sick too. Sorry for making you come over.”

“Don’t worry, I made a large batch so you can heat up more later. Just take care of each other okay,” she said before turning around to leave.

“Thank you Mrs. Matthews,” he said and she smiled back at him.

Lucas closed the door and walked into the kitchen to grab some bowls for the soup, he put some in both bowls and put it on a tray so he could carry them, he grabbed a couple of bottles of water, he went to the pantry and grabbed some medicine for the both of them before walking back  upstairs. Riley was still asleep but he knew she needed to take some medicine. Setting the tray on the bedside table and moved closer to Riley and pulled her up so that she was sitting up.

“Come on Riley you need to eat,” he said slowly waking  her up. She grumbled but opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Sorry I’m sick,” she whispered.

“I gave it to you so it’s my fault, now let’s eat some of this and you can take your medicine so you can sleep.”

“Okay,” she said so lightly he almost didn’t hear her. 

Instead of letting her pick up the spoon he held the bowl in one hand and spoon fed her the soup, she  ate  it slowly but he was happy that she was eating. When she finished he grabbed the water bottle and the medicine and had her drink it in small sips.

“Better,” he said and she nodded. “Go back to sleep.”

She snuggled back up to his leg and slept while he ate his soup, the book her mother had brought hadn’t made it upstairs so he ran down to get it and sat against the headboard watching Riley breathe. He opened the book to see a bunch of drawings made with crayons and pencils, under eat page there was a story. He couldn’t help but smiling, thinking that little Riley was sitting on the floor when she was little slowly drawing each page while she wrote her story.

“The Princess and the Cowboy,” he read out loud, thinking about what her mother had said. She liked this when she was little and he wanted to read it to her just to see if it would make her feel better.

“Once upon a time, there was a little princess that everyone loved,” he loved her too. “She helped out at home, and played with the flowers outside her window. Waiting for the day her Prince would come save her.”  _ I’ll save you _ , he thought to himself smiling.

“One day she went out into the forest and got lost, her mommy and daddy were nowhere to be found. So the Princess called out for someone to help her, but no one heard her.”

He looked at the drawings, the princess was in a forest with purple birds in the sky, and the leaves were yellow and red. 

“Suddenly a prince came riding up to her in a horse and asked her if she needed some help. ‘Are you my Prince?’ she asked him but he said no. ‘I’m a cowboy, but I can help you find your way.’ And so he helped her out of the forest.”

“A cowboy huh, maybe I’ll wear my cowboy hat and be your prince in real life,” Lucas said to a sleeping Riley.

“When they got to the castle grounds the Cowboy helped her over the gate, where her mommy and daddy waited. But when she turned around to ask him to come in and have chocolate with her, he smiled at her and rode away, saying ‘One day we will meet again’ as he rode back into the forest of trees.”

“What no happy ending,” he said as he was about to turn the page. Riley moaned and said something he didn’t understand before she rushed off to the bathroom and started throwing up into the toilet. Lucas quickly followed her and held back her hair, slowly running his hand up and down her back until she finished.

“Lucas, I don’t feel really good,” she said before she passed out on the floor in front of him. Her skin was hotter than before, and he didn’t know what to do.

“Riley,” he said hoping she heard him. “I’m going to call a doctor, I’ll be back.”

He rushed out of the bathroom to grab his phone and called his doctor, the doctor said to give her a cold bath and he would be over in an hour, but Lucas was scared as he picked her up off the floor. They should have the same thing but it had hit her harder and he didn’t want her to feel any pain. When he put her back to bed he sat there waiting, hoping that she would just wake up and smile at her.

“You’re my princess,” he said to her.


	13. Surprises

The doctor comes over and takes a look at Riley on the bed, Lucas is going crazy thinking the worse because she had passed out and hadn’t woken up. He didn’t know what to do with himself as the doctor looked her over. He wanted to punch a wall because he had gotten sick in the first place, he wanted to punch himself for not talking to her soon er before he had put it all on himself. When the doctor walked out he was already feeling his nerves jumping up and down, he was afraid of the worse.

“She’s fine,” the man said to him but Lucas didn’t feel like anything was fine. “You gave her soup with potatoes and meat in it when she should have only had the broth. Her stomach couldn’t handle the actual food. Some people get like this when they’re sick.”

“So what, I just give her broth and water,” he saw wondering if he could mess this up even more than he had.

“Yes for now, no solid food, her throat can’t handle it because of the soreness, plain yogurt, jello and applesauce will be fine as well, and when she’s feeling better tell her to come and see me, I don’t like the way her tonsils swelled up from this.”

“Are you giving her anything? Do I need to know if she needs to take it at a certain time?”

“I’m giving her some antibiotics to help her, as well as some vitamins, I left enough for today but make sure someone picks them up for tomorrow. The instructions are on the label, she will be fine, her body is just tired,” he said as Lucas escorted the man out. “Take good care of her.”

“I will and thank you for coming over on such short notice.”

“It’s not a problem Mr. Friar, have a good day,” he said as he got on the elevator. 

Once alone Lucas started making arrangements for the week only to find out that Riley had taken care of everything, she had been so efficient that it made him proud. He called Richard asking him to get Riley’s medicine since Lucas didn’t want to leave the house. He had grabbed some more water and ate some food leaving Riley to sleep while he waited for Richard to come over. He looked over at some files that Iz had left on the table for him regarding Charlie Gardner, he felt like it had been a million years since everything had been turned upside down but it had only been a matter of weeks. Just as he finished reading it the door opened and he dropped the papers and just walked away.

The medicine was as straight forward as the doctor had said, the antibiotics and the vitamins were both once a day every day for ten days. The instructions for the food were also in the bag, as well as the note for Riley to see the doctor. The man had been through, making sure that Lucas knew what he should be doing.

He walked upstairs to check on Riley only to walk into an empty bedroom, he checked the bathroom to see if she was in there but no one was inside. Then he remembered something that Mrs. Matthews had said about Riley locking herself away in the closet when she was sick and he automatically ran in there to see her in the darkest corner crying, while she rocked herself trying to make herself feel better.

“Riley,” he said softly but at the sound of his voice she jumped and started crying. “Riley what’s wrong?”

“I’m so afraid Lucas,” she whispered. “He’s going to find me and I won’t be able to do anything.”

He had never seen her as vulnerable as she was at that moment, she had always been the strong one, the one who made sure everyone had a smile on their face, even when  everything had gone to hell the moment Victoria and Logan showed up. 

He grabbed her face and looked her in the eye, “Don’t worry Riley the monsters won’t get you, I’ll slay them for you and you can be safe and happy no matter what.”

“But if Charlie found me I know for sure that he would do anything to hurt me,” she said. “He always said such hateful things, but they were disguised as lovely words. He was so mean to me, but he looked at me as if I was something that he had to keep locked up.”

She held onto Lucas as if the whole world was falling apart, he knew the truth about Charlie, how his parents forced them to move to another state for Charlie to start off brand new. He had gotten away and plotted the kidnapping, and how after the kidnapping attempt didn’t work he had drunk himself stupid and drove off into the night. How the man who had terrorized her for years, ended up paralyzed from the waist down because he had gotten drunk one too many times after that and continued to drive as if he were sober. How he had driven into a guard rail on the I-95 and ended up flipping the car over. He had lost everything, his driver’s license was suspended, his parents locked him up to make sure nothing happened again, and how he was now living in assisted care, in California.

Lucas wanted to tell Riley about all of this but instead he held her  until she fell asleep in his arms, he knew that if had said anything she wouldn’t remember it because she was delirious. He wanted the words to come out when he knew she would remember them, so that she would remember that the monsters in her life were slayed, not by him but by their own demons.

* * *

Riley woke up in bed, she didn’t know what time it was or how long she had been sick, all she knew was that her mouth felt like sandpaper and she wanted to take a bath. She looked around to see where Lucas was but he wasn’t anywhere near the room. She wondered if he had gone to work, but she had the feeling that he was close by. Instead of going to look for him she went into the bathroom and washed up, she wanted a shower so badly but she felt uneasy on her feet. She took a wash cloth and sat next to the counter scrubbing her face and her neck, when she was done she went looking for fresh clothes.

“Riley,” Lucas’s voice called her from the bedroom. “Where are you? Please don’t tell me your hiding again.”

_ What did he mean by hiding? _ She wondered, but she called out to him “In here,” her voice hoarse.

“Hey you’re awake,” he said smiling. “Come on you have to take your medicine, and you need to rest.”

“I want a shower first, I feel gross,” she said her voice low.

“How about a warm bath, that way you can sit in the tub, and I can scrub your back.”

She looked at him and thought about how nice it would feel, “Can you wash my hair too?”

“Yes I can, come on let me take care of you,” he said grabbing her clothes and putting his hand around her waist guiding her back to the bathroom. “Sit down while I fill up the tub, how hot do you want the water?”

“Very hot, just kidding it had to be hot enough that it won’t get cold too fast,” she smiled at him, and then she thought about what he said about her hiding, she remembered when she was little  and she was sick she would always hide in the closet. She didn’t know why and when she asked her mother about it she said that it was her safe space. “Lucas, what did you mean by hiding, why was I hiding?”

He kept his eyes on the tub filling up, but she could see the tension in his shoulders, from that alone she knew something had happened. “Do you remember waking up and running to the bathroom to throw up?”

“Yes and no, it’s a little fuzzy, I remember the feeling but not actually throwing up.”

“I called a doctor after that because you passed out, I gave you a bath right after while I waited for him to come, but you were asleep the whole time, and I was so worried, he said it could have been because your fever was high and also that I made you eat the soup with everything instead of just giving you the broth,” he sighed as he told the story, she noticed the bags under his eyes.

“How long was I sick? I don’t remember anything,” she said wondering how many days she had lost.

“That was only yesterday, I’ve been so worried that I hadn’t really slept,” he said as he threw some bubble bath she had brought because it smelled like chocolate. “When the doctor was leaving I walked him to the door, he told me to give you soft foods, mostly liquids and the medicine and you would get better. You have to take them for the next ten days to make sure the  flu is out of your system. When I was waiting for Richard to bring them over I was reading a file, you were asleep in bed so I wasn’t worried about being away for too long, but I had only been gone for half an hour. When I got back to the room you were gone and I thought you were in the bathroom again.”

“I was in the closet,” she interrupted him. 

“Yes,’ he sighed. “You were hiding, from Charlie.”

Riley thought about it trying to find the memory but she couldn’t, it had probably been a nightmare that had taken her there.

“Riley, I wanted to tell you about him, the file I was reading was the one Iz had put together on him, she had left it on the counter for me and I had forgotten it.”

“Is he coming for me?”

“No I don’t think he’ s coming for anyone at all anymore, apparently after the failed kidnapping he spiraled out of control. I kept wondering why he hadn’t suffered jail time for violating the restraining order, but by the time that they had put both cases together he had become paralyzed from the waist down. He needs a wheelchair to get around, and lives in an assisted care facility that only allows him to leave if his parents are the ones who check him out.”

She could feel her body shaking, for years she wondered what had happened to him, now she knew that he had been given the ultimate punishment, and he had done it to himself. Lucas wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head. She was safe from both of the people who had shaped the darkest parts of her life. Now she wondered if she could do the same for Lucas, but she knew that she couldn’t help him the way he had helped her. He needed something from his parents, something that fixed the dark parts of his heart.

“Come on let’s get you into the bathtub,” he said breaking the silence. She nodded and stood as he slowly stripped the clothes from her body, he was careful as he did it and she knew it was taking everything he had not to touch her completely. She stood in the tub as he helped her down, as the water washed over her body she started to relax. 

“This feels so good,” she said as she sat there. She watched him grab her vanilla shampoo, she dunked her head into the water and came up with a face full of bubble. Lucas laughed as he wiped them from her face, and place a soft kiss on her lips.

He slowly massaged the shampoo into her hair making her feel like a queen in one of those old movies, where her man servant did everything for her, even make love to her in the bath. As Lucas rinsed out the shampoo and started on the conditioner she decided that she wanted it all, she watched him get up to grab a comb and just as he was going to kneel back down she grabbed onto his arm and pulled him to her. 

“Riley what are you doing?” he said as he came face to face with her.

“Be quiet man servant, I want to have my way with you,” she said giving him a sly smile.

“Man servant?” he gave her a questioning look but she pulled him down to her lips before he could say anything else. She loved how soft his lips were against hers, how even with the smell of chocolate and vanilla surrounding them, she could smell the  of musk and sandalwood. When he pulled away his eyes said something else to her, and that was pure desire.

“You know we both fit inside of this tub,” she said.

“Riley, you’re sick.”

“Yes with the exact same flu you had now come and have your way with me,” she said back at him before he could change his mind. But she saw the struggle in his eyes, so she did the one thing that she could think to do, she pulled him down to her, the water sloshed around and soaked the floor. She hadn’t known before if he could get any sexier but now she knew that even in completely soaked clothes he was the picture of perfection.

She grabbed onto his shirt and tugged at the buttons, but she wasn’t strong enough to break them. When he saw her distress he did it for her, making her smile as he revealed the hard lines of his body. He kissed her softly at first while she ran her hands up and down his chest, feeling the rough lines one by one, before running her hands up his back and onto his hair. 

“You’re going to make me lose control,” he whispered but she pulled him back down and this time made sure that he would stay with her. “I need to take off my jeans Riley.”

“But I need you more,”  she whispered.

“As my lady commands,” he said making her giggle.

“So we’re playing this game now are we? Alright service me man servant.”

He kissed her hard on the mouth and slowly worked his hands down her body, massaging her shoulders, tracing the lines of her breast, when he broke away from her kiss he started kissing her just below her ear and she shivered in his touch. He bit down on the bottom part of her earlobe as his slowly touched her breast, her nipples reacted to his touch automatically, and Riley was starting to believe that he knew  what he did to her because he slowly pinched them just to hear her gasp. She pulled him back to her, and pulled him in for a kiss as his hand continued to travel down to the one place she wanted him to be, but before he could touch her she pulled his hand away.

“No, I want you not your hand,” she said, the blood rushing through her ears as her mind screamed at her for making him stop. At her words he got up and stripped his soaked jeans off of his body and watched him lower himself to her. He grabbed her waist and pulled her up until she was straddling over him, but before she lowered herself down to meet him body he pulled her onto the corner of the bathtub where it met the wall. 

He started kissing her again, this time it was filled with desperation for her, and she felt every touch as if she was on fire. Without pulling away he positioned himself at her entrance and slowly pushed in, she wrapped her legs around him, urging him to go faster.

“Stop torturing me Lucas,” she said. Her mind was going crazy from how slow he was trying to take it with her. She was still sick but she didn’t care, she wanted him at that moment and there was nothing that would stop her.

She could feel his smile across her lips, and she knew that her words had ignited something within him and she was going to regret it because he started touching her and not moving at all.  When she wiggled around he gasped,  _ two can play that game mister _ , was all she could think to say but instead she said it with her body.

“Fine, you win,” he said against her mouth and filled her completely making her gasp. “It’s what you wanted.”

“Yes it is,” she smiled as he slowly moved in and out of her, kissing her senseless as he did it. The longer they were together the slower he tried to go but she knew it was becoming too much for him when her body reacted and started to clench around him. 

Slowness didn’t matter anymore, only their mutual lust drove them over the edge as he started going faster and faster. His kisses seared her skin, branding her body as he pulled her closer. When they both cried out in each other’s arms, Riley could feel the tiredness of her body. Lucas picked her up and quickly rinsed out her hair before helping her into her clothes and setting her down on the bed. She watched him rush into the closet and grab a fresh pair of jeans, before walking to her and drying her hair. By the time he was done, she had felt so tired that she wanted to fall asleep but instead he made sure she ate something and took her medicine. When she was done he tucked her into bed and kissed her lightly on the lips. She fell asleep before he finished.

* * *

Riley stayed in bed for another day, as Lucas watched over her, when she had enough strength in her she demanded all of his attention. He made love to her and waited on her, he did it because she wanted it but also because it made him happy to have her all to himself. He worked so much some days that he only had single moments to be with her, dinners and movie dates, he never took the time to have her completely and now that he knew how it felt he didn’t want to let it go. Yet he still held back in telling her to stay, the nagging memory of his uncle, and his parents’ marriage always in the back of his mind.

Instead he devoted his attention to her and made sure she got enough sleep in between everything else. When she started feeling better to where she wanted to walk around he took her to the living room and they watched movies, he opened the doors to the terrace and let in the autumn air and the sounds of the city below them. After another day had passed she had become well enough to cook again, but they stuck to soup and bread because her throat still hurt a bit. By the end of the weekend they were both feeling a hundred percent better, and they were smiling at each other.

Monday morning the both of them went back to work, but he couldn’t help but smiled while he sat in the office sending her pictures of him making stupid faces. 

“Well someone’s happy,” Zay said as he walked in through the door. “What did making you sick knock something loose in that brain you yours?”

“No it’s just that I got to spend a lot of time with Riley,” he said smiling at his friend who looked at him in horror.

“What happened to man, I thought I was your one and only,” placing his hand over his chest Zay threw himself on a nearby chair. “We used to have it all and now I’ve been set aside for some woman.”

“Funny,” Lucas said turning his attention back to work. 

“I actually came up here to say thanks, you know for vouching for me with Mrs. Matthews, she took me with her for her firm, even though I thought she wouldn’t.”

“Zay, you’re an incredible attorney, she knows it, I only asked because your connection to me would only make your life harder over there.”

“Yeah but still thanks,” Zay said getting up and straightening himself out. “Mrs. Matthews also wants to see you, she said something about us getting a floor here, and since you were sick we’ve been working out of her home office.”

“Sure, is she here?”

“Yeah she’s talking to Iz, we’ve got a couple of clients including you, a lot of them actually followed her when she said that they didn’t have to, and she’s getting lawyers for the firm. I think it’s going to be a force to be reckoned with.”

“That is something I know, let me go out there and talk to her,” Lucas said getting up from his desk and walking around to where Zay stood. His friend patted him on his shoulder and walked out of the room with him to see Riley’s mother standing at the  desk Iz usually worked at.

“Oh good Lucas,” she said smiling at him. “Are you feeling better? How’s Riley?”

“We’re both feeling great, Riley’s working on the deliveries for her business as we speak. Thanks for your help,” he said smiling at her.

She pulled him in for a hug, which was new to him since they never had this kind of contact, “You’re a part of this family Lucas, and family helps one another.”

“Yes we do,” he said hugging her back.

“Now let’s get to it because I have a lot of interviews to conduct, and nowhere to have them.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said  taking them down to the floor he had left empty for years trying to figure out what to do with it. 

He showed them around, there were several offices and a receptionist area, glass doors that led into the main office, as well as a conference room. The place was completely furnished, which he had arranged while he and Riley had been sick, he made sure that it would be ready for them when they wanted to move it.

“Lucas you didn’t have to do this much,” Mrs. Matthews said as she looked around the room.

“Of course I did, remember we’re family.”

“Thank you,” she said. 

“Your office is back here, I figured that the boss needed the biggest office.”

“What about me?” Zay said jokingly but Lucas hadn’t forgotten his friend. 

“Your office is over there, on the opposite end of the corridor, so you wouldn’t bother your boss,” he said smiling at him.

“Geez man, you don’t have to call me out like that,” Zay said before turning. “No excuse me I have to go see my office, that I’m not sharing with anyone.”

Lucas watch Zay walk away thinking that it was a good idea to make him come over with Mrs. Matthews, he needed to learn from her.

“Lucas,” she said drawing his attention back to his mother in law. “ I don’t know how I will ever be able to repay you for all of this, for everything you’ve done for Riley.”

“You already did,” he smiled. “You gave me Riley.”

* * *

A month had passed since she had been sick, and Riley had finally found the time to go visit the doctor that Lucas had told her to go see. Lucas had told her that the doctor was worried about her tonsils because of the way they had swelled up, but since he had given her the antibiotics she thought it would just go away.

The moment she had entered the office they had taken her medical history, drew blood, and made her pee in a cup, all before she even saw the doctor. She couldn’t help but wonder about how through they were being.

“The doctor will see you know Mrs. Friar,” the nurse said pulling her out of her thoughts. She followed the nurse down the hallway and into the doctor’s office.

“Hello Mrs. Friar, this is the first time I’ve seen you when you’re awake, my name is Doctor David Sanders. I’m Lucas’s main physician, as well as yours now that you’ve come here if you would like that. Unless you’d be more comfortable with another doctor?”

“I’m okay with you being my doctor, it’s just weird I feel like I’m in a different world,” she said looking around.

“Ah, well the majority of my patients fall into the upper middle class, and higher, I’ve built a good reputation here, but I also help out at the free clinic on Fridays and Saturdays. I’d rather help as many people as I can.”

Riley couldn’t help but smile, he was a nice man older than her father, but very dedicated to his work.

“While you waited I had them do the basic tests on you, I just need to know if you’re feeling better since you were sick, and if your throat is still hurting.”

“No the medicine you gave me worked very well.”

“Good, I thought you might have had an infection when you had gotten sick that’s why I gave you the antibiotics. But seeing you know you look better than you did then.”

They talked about her medical history, as well as having her update her shots since they were due to have been done that week. As they talked the nurse walked in with the preliminary test and the vials of each shot she needed. There were only three bottle so it wouldn’t be as bad as she had thought.

“Riley have you had unprotected sex with your husband in the last month?” he asked her pulling her out of her thoughts about the needles and the shots.

“Um… yes, when I got the depo shot we hadn’t really thought about condoms.”

“I guess we should have talked about the fact that antibiotics reduce the efficiency of any other medication, but it’s very rare so I completely forgot.”

“Why what happened?” she said afraid that she had gotten something because she had been stupid enough to give into her urges while she was sick.

“You’re pregnant,” he said to her. She felt the blood rushing through her veins as her mind screamed that the shot was supposed to stop that from happening.


	14. Denial

Lucas got home happy from his meeting with Mrs. Matthews, he didn’t know that having people care about him mattered so much. He wanted to talk to Riley about staying with him, he only wanted her and nothing else. When he walked in through the doors he looked around and noticed that Riley wasn’t home, it took him a minute to remember that she had a doctor’s appointment, so he decided to surprise her by cooking dinner himself. It was a warm day so grilling up some steaks was the best idea he had. He knew he wasn’t a great cook but he knew how to make meat , he grabbed a couple of potatoes and put them in the oven to roast like Riley taught him and pulled out some steaks she had brought the day before.

When she had gotten home an hour later he had set the table with candles and flowers, she looked at him and smiled at the gesture and gave him a quick kiss. 

“I’m going to go change, I feel weird wearing what I had on at the doctor’s office,” she said before walking away. 

Lucas walked over to the dock and put on some classical music to set the mood for what he wanted to talk about. When she came back down she was wearing her favorite purple cable knit sweater and a pair of skinny jeans. She looked perfect to him with her hair piled up on her head and a soft smile on her lips. But he could tell that something was wrong, he wondered if the doctor’s appointment had gone bad and she didn’t want to tell him.

Instead of pushing he pour them some wine and served the food, he knew she would tell him before the end of the night. 

“Can I actually get some water, I don’t feel like drinking tonight,” she said and he tried his best not to look worried about her. 

“Okay,” he said walking to the kitchen and grabbing a glass pouring water from a pitcher they kept in the fridge, taking the pitcher with him to the table to see Riley staring out into the air.

“Thank you,” she said taking the glass from him. “For everything.”

“Riley what’s wrong?” he asked not being able to stand the look she had on her face.

“Nothing, why do you think something is wrong?”

“ Well your smile isn’t reaching your eyes, almost like you’re trying to hold something back. Did the doctor tell you something and you’re trying to hold back because of me?”

She sighed in front of him, before she looked him in the eye, “I love you,” she said. “Don’t ever forget that.”

“Riley, please just tell me,” he said.

“I’m pregnant,” she said and those words brought his happy mood down to nothing. The one thing he hadn’t wanted, he wanted her only and nothing else, he couldn’t be a father he saw how his own father had been. He hadn’t ever had a good influence he would tear apart his own child just like his father had.

His mind went through every single thins his father had drilled into him, he needed to be the best at everything, failure wasn’t an option for a Friar, the reminder of what his Uncle said about Lucas not being his father’s child even though he had the same face as the man. The way his mother broke down over his father’s affairs.

“I didn’t want this Riley,” he said looking at her. “I can’t be a father.”

“Lucas,” she said to him but he couldn’t deal with her without yelling. 

“I knew this was going to happen, why didn’t I listen to my instincts before, I can’t do this Riley, I can’t,” he said turning around and walking out of the apartment. Their dinner on the table forgotten, as he took the elevator and got into his car and drove off without looking back.

Riley couldn’t believe what had just happened, she knew he had issues with family but she only knew what Zay had told her. But she knew that his parents at one point in their marriage had t ruly loved each other. Yet the moment the words came out of her mouth she could feel him getting distant, pushing himself away from her. They had gotten close in the months that they had been together, six months together, falling in love and this one moment changed everything.

The tears formed as she sat there in front of a dinner he had put together, she didn’t know why he had done it either. She looked at it as if it were supposed to tell her why everything had gone to hell in an instant. Why the doctor hadn’t thought about telling her about the antibiotics or telling Lucas, but she couldn’t blame the doctor because he hadn’t known that they were having sex without condoms even though they had them in the house. She couldn’t blame anyone but the people who made the drugs that she had taken, but even then she couldn’t blame anyone. It happened and now she had a child growing inside of her, and she didn’t know if Lucas wanted anything to do with it.

She got up and ran to their room and started packing a bag, she needed time away from her husband, maybe they needed a little distance from each other. Her apartment had never been packed up, she had left everything there so she could think while she was there about what to do next. Lucas had made himself clear about his stance on the baby, and she knew he wouldn’t move from that position unless he realized what he was losing. She didn’t want to think about him even though it hurt, as if she was losing a part of herself. She couldn’t even put him in the same category as Charlie and Logan, because Lucas had made it known what he wanted from this marriage and she had let herself fall for him.

She wrote a note for him because she wanted him to know what she planned to do, even if being away from him would send her into the darkest parts of her heart.

_ Dear Lucas, _

_ I don’t know where we stand on this, but I’m making a choice because I need to think about what’s best for the baby. Even if I don’t have you in my life, I’ll have our child, and in some way that’s better than not having you at all. I don’t need your money, or your help, we’ll be okay even if it breaks my heart.  _

_ Just remember this, you are not your parents, I see that in your eyes, in the stories Zay tells me, in the way you worked so hard to preserve your family’s legacy. You would be a wonderful father because you would fight for you _ _ r _ _ child just like you fought for your business. _

_ Never forget, that I love you, and that the last six months are still better than never knowing you at all.  _

_ Love always, _

_ Riley _

She picked up her bag leaving the note on top of her favorite little book, about a Princess and a Cowboy, and made sure they were on his pillow so he would see it when he returned. She went to the elevator trying not to cry and took it all the way down to the lobby. Walking out into the crisp autumn air, and thinking about what her life was going to be without the man she loved.

Lucas had drove off and found himself in his empty office, everyone had gone home for the night leaving him there alone. He looked out the window into the bright New York lights, but all he felt was darkness in his heart. He cursed himself for letting in the feelings he had for Riley, but he didn’t regret them. He didn’t regret being with her, but he knew he should have talk to her about what he wanted before everything had gotten too far.

The more he thought about it the more he let his anger control him, he picked up a paper weight that had sat on his desk and threw it across the room, watching as it hit and shattered a vase. But it didn’t make him feel better, he opened the compartment behind his desk and pulled out a bottle of bourbon and took a drink, feeling the burning sensation as he took another deep drink.

“Why is life so fucking complicated?” he said out loud but there was no one there to answer him. 

He took another drink before he realized a box sitting on his desk, it was addressed to him, but the return address was from his father.

_ What the hell? _ he thought to himself looking at the box. He sat down and grabbed the box that the ghost of his past had sent him. After two years his father was contacting him from the grave and Lucas knew that he needed to see what was inside. When he opened it he saw nothing but envelopes addressed between his mother and father and on the bottom was a letter addressed to Lucas.

He opened it noticing his father’s handwriting on the back, the words  _ I’m sorry _ over the seal of the envelope.

_ Lucas, my son, I’m sorry for everything. When I had gotten sick I realized that I had done the one thing I swore to your mother that I wouldn’t do. I left her heart, I knew you were my son since the day you were born, but I was stupid enough to listen to my brother. One of the reason I made sure he didn’t have any part of this company was partly because of what he had said and done in regards to my marriage to your mother. The other part had to do with what he had done to the company _ _ . I worked myself to death because I felt guilty for listening to him and ruining what I had with your mother. I regret not telling you before, because I already knew that you hated me for it, and I deserved that.  _

_ These letters, were written by your mother and I when we were just kids, even then we knew that we loved each other. My brother wanted me to marry a socialite to cover up for what he had already started doing, but I eloped with your mother. Your grandfather didn’t care who I was with as long as I was happy, but when he died my brother took advantage of the grief and pulled my marriage apart. I won’t deny sleeping with the secretary, it was a moment of weakness on my part and I spent so much time regretting it. But I didn’t cheat on your mother before then, I was broken by her death and did something stupid. I let you believe the worse about me because I felt like I deserved it for what I had done to you and to your mother. _

_ I lived everyday knowing about everything you accomplished, I was proud even though I didn’t show it. I kept everything from when you were a child, even if I never showed it to you. I knew that it was the best thing I had done as a parent. Don’t let my mistakes stop you from ever falling in love, because in the end you would regret it every day of your life like I had. _ _ I gave it all up but you shouldn’t have to, Lucas don’t give up on love, go after it with everything in your heart. _

_ Love, _

_ Your father _

Lucas sat there rereading the letter, opening each letter in the box and seeing the truth about his parents, and the wedge that was between them. There were letters in the box that were written to  his mother apologizing, they didn’t have stamps on them, but they had their address from Texas. In each letter his father apologized, and wrote about something he had done or seen that she would have loved . 

“What have I done?” he said into the quiet darkness of his office.


	15. It’s Always been you, Forever

Lucas rushes out of his office building , with the letters in his hands, intending to get into his car and drive home, but he remembers drinking the bourbon and stops before he can turn the car on. He calls Richard and asks him to come and pick up the car in the morning, before hailing a cab to take him home. The whole ride all he could think about was the way he messed everything up in less than five minutes, and hoping that Riley was waiting for him. Waiting for him to stop being a whiny baby, for him to realize that what he was doing was stupid. But he also knew that there was a possibility that she would have left. He had done something that was on par with what her other exes had done, he had denied her and each minute he was in the cab the look on her face stabbed him in the heart.

_ I’m just like my father _ , he thought to himself.  _ Just like him, I would give up everything just because I’m afraid. I would lose the single most important person in my life, and the chance at being happy because everything else had gotten in the way. _ _ I don’t want to lose her like my father lost my mother, the pain of losing her would kill me. _

The driver stopped in front of his building and Lucas took out a hundred-dollar bill, “Keep the change,” he called to the driver before rushing out of the car and to the private elevator. He pressed the key code for his floor and waited. 

The ride was less than a minute but by the time the doors opened he knew that she wasn’t there. She had an energy about her, when she was happy he could feel it, when she was stressed, or even worried and sad. He didn’t feel any of it, he walked through the rooms to make sure that she wasn’t hiding somewhere, but he knew she wasn’t there.

Walking up the stairs he looked around the second floor, room after room empty, he didn’t need them at all, he didn’t need all of this extravagance if it meant that she wasn’t there smiling at him when he told her about his day, or her stories about growing up, or when she saw something interesting on the street and would describe it in detail. He had lost it all and all it took was a single moment to end it. 

His bedroom was dark when he walked in and all he wanted to do was crawl onto her side of the bed and  smell her pillow just to remember what it’s like to have her near. He remembered that first night in the bed, how it was awkward, but when he woke up she was in his arms so instead of pulling away from her, he pulled her in and took in her scent. The memory of her body against  his, even on the overly large bed they always found their way to one another and it was special for him. He had told her that he loved her, and he had meant it but in the end he still messed it all up. 

He turned on the light on his side of the bed and saw Riley’s story on his pillow, a note on top, he knew it was her goodbye but he didn’t want that goodbye anymore he wanted her. Instead of running out to look for her he sat down and looked at the note, the only thing that struck him was when she wrote  _ You would be a wonderful father _ he hadn’t known before reading the letter, because he doubted himself, but Riley had become his cheerleader. She saw what he had missed, and now he had lost her.

Opening the book, he read about the princess being lost, and the cowboy helping her, even though it was meant to be a fairy tale for Riley, it felt real for him. He remembered there was a final page in the story that he hadn’t had the chance to read because Riley had gotten up and ran to the bathroom. He wondered if the Cowboy and the Princess got their happy ending, but when he turned the page he saw a picture of a little boy and a little girl holding hands. He looked closer and saw himself when he had been in New York when he was younger, the memory of that day was something he had forgotten over the years, but it had resurfaced when Riley came into his life. In the background he saw Mrs. Matthews, but the little girl had the same beautiful brown eyes as Riley. 

“We’ve met before,” he said out loud to no one. The cowboy in the story was a real boy who had helped a little girl find her parents.  He remembered that day wishing for what she had, a family that wasn’t broken, but it would take their whole lives for them to find each other once again. Even after fate threw Logan and Victoria at them, because they would have had to cross paths at some point. But they hadn’t, they hadn’t met again until Vegas. Lucas couldn’t think anymore instead he sat there and cried for the first time since his mother died.

Riley walked back into the penthouse, she had forgotten the keys to her old apartment in her nightstand. She didn’t know if Lucas had come back, but if he did she had to be prepared for his second rejection. As she walked into the room she saw him hunched over on her side of the bed hugging her pillow. He was crying as he held onto the pillow, as if it would make up for her not being there. Her heart broke looking at him and she walked over to him and touched his hand. His body jerked at the feeling of her hand and he pulled away, his eyes red and puffy from crying, and she started crying with him. 

Lucas grabbed her and pulled her close, she could smell alcohol on his breath but he wasn’t drunk, it was a faint smell, but it was still there along with the smell of his cologne. She didn’t know what had happened in the short time they had been apart but for some reason she knew that he had broken down. Instead of pulling away from him she pushes off her shoes and gets as close to him as she could. He chest was shuddering from him trying to even out his breath from crying but slowly he starts breathing normal, the steady beat of his heart against hers.

They don’t talk, or move to even try instead they stay there in each other’s arms, around them the world continues to move while they’re froze in the moment.  They fall asleep in that same position, without taking off their clothes or changing into something more comfortable.

When she wakes up the next morning he’s gone, and she thinks that she had dreamed the whole thing, she gets up to wash her face and gets ready to leave again thinking that he had never made it home, but when she walked out of the bathroom he’s coming in with a tray in his hands attempting to keep it balanced without dropping anything. 

“I thought we’d have breakfast in bed,” he said to her, the first words that either one of them had said since she had come back for her keys. “I think we need to have a very long talk.”

She watched his face, but she didn’t see the anger from the day before, she only saw sadness, his eyes had bits of red in them from the crying the night before, but he still looked like Lucas.

“Sure,” she said walking over to the bed and climbing in. She watched as he walked around the bed and set the tray down, carefully as he slowly sat down next to her.

“Don’t say anything before I finish what I have to say, I need to get this out first,” he watched her as she nodded. She was curious about what he had to say so she stayed silent, he handed her some juice and motioned for her to eat.

“When I left last night I was scared, my biggest fear in life was for me to turn into my father, how he had hurt my mother, how he walked away. I hadn’t realized that by leaving you, I h ad done the same thing,” he took a deep breath before continuing. “I drank some bourbon I usually hide in my office for special occasions, I was so angry with you but mostly with myself for not being able to control the situation. I threw things, I’m not proud of it.”

She looked down at her hands wondering where he was going with his story, but she knew that if she didn’t listen to the whole story she would regret it so she nibbled on her toast and watched as he fought with himself to tell her everything he needed to say.

“I found a box on my desk,” he said after a minute had passed. “It was addressed to me, from my father, inside were letters from my parents to each other, they dated back years before I was born. I read a few of them, my parents had really loved each other, but in the end something or more like someone had wedged themselves in between them. My father had left me a letter among all of those letters, with his biggest regrets, but he also told me not to give up on love. I rushed back here in a cab, and looked for you but all I found was the book and your letter.”

He pulled the book out and handed it to her, “You wrote it but apparently your mother added a page in the back, or at least that who I think did it since she was the one who read it to you when you were a little girl. There’s a picture in the back, not hand drawn, it’s a picture of a little girl and a little boy.”

Riley grabbed the book before he finished and flipped to the end of the story turning it to see the little boy from her dreams, before looking up at Lucas.

“We’ve met before, I think you were right about one thing, we were supposed to meet a long time ago, we were supposed to be together, but life like everything else messed that up and we hadn’t had the chance to meet again until Vegas. Riley, it’s always been you, the life I wanted the one I wanted was always supposed to be you. Our lives, our family, you, me, and that little jellybean inside of you.  We just got lost on the way, we had to go through all of the hard stuff before we found each other, because it made this moment our moment.”

“This is you,” she finally said. “I’ve dreamed of you all of my life, and wished for you, but we were so close and nothing.”

“We were supposed to meet now, not before that.”

“So you still want me?”

“For all eternity.”

“And the baby?”

“He or she will be our perfect, slightly crazy little bundle but they will be ours, and maybe some siblings along the way.”

“You really want this?”

“Yes,” he said, but she looked down at her hands, wondering if she should pinch herself. Instead he pulled her in close and kissed her, the kiss was soft, but also demanding, it engulfed her in everything he was feeling. When the pulled away she scooted closer and wrapped her arms around him.

“Lucas, I love you,” she said inhaling his scent.

“I love you too Riley,” he says with a smile on his face. “You’re my guardian angel, my princess, my queen, you’re my everything.”

* * *

It was almost Christmas and Lucas was smiling at Riley who was wearing a dress to hide the fact that she was pregnant, she wasn’t showing a lot yet, but she could already feel the changes in her body. They were having Christmas dinner at their house , they were going to surprise their family  and friends with the news. Lucas and her were getting closer and closer every day and she knew that he had stepped over a big hurtle to get to where he was. She cooked baby versions of everything, pot roast with glazed baby carrots, and baby red potatoes. She made dessert into an event as well, using it to reveal the baby, she had spent all day making it and hiding it from Zay who could sniff out anything sweet within a ten-foot radius.

The doorman rang them telling them that their family were on their way up, Lucas kissed her and walked over to let them in. The voices of their loved ones filled the room as Riley finished setting the table.

“My baby girl,” her father said rushing over to hug her. Her mother not far behind, her law practice was already thriving and they had only been open for a few months, she was so proud of her.

“Hi Daddy, Hi Mom,” Riley said to her parents smiling. Her brother rushed over pulling his girlfriend Ava with him.

“Riley,” he said beaming at her. “I asked Ava to marry me this morning,” he said and Ava put her hand out showing the ring he had given her. It wasn’t a huge ring, but it was filled with their love. 

“You guys,” Riley said trying not to cry, the hormones made her a mess every minute of every day. Seeing her face Lucas rushed over and hugged her. “Congrats, I didn’t think Mom would ever let Ava into the family.”

“Oh very funny Riley,” her mother said before smiling at her and walking away to talk to Zay who had brought Vanessa with him.

She couldn’t help but smiled at her mother, it was weird because Ava and Auggie have been married since they were children, but in some way Riley saw something in the girl that her mother feared, and that was the fact that in some small way they were alike.

“Our family,” Lucas said smiling at her. “They’re all incredible in their own way.”

“Yes they are.”

Riley and Lucas talked to everyone, before Riley called them all to dinner, for the first time the table in the dining room was filled with people. Riley wondered if Lucas would buy a bigger table for the next family dinner they had. Everyone talked around the table, about politics, the future of the Mets, the Knicks game coming up. They talked about having a big family vacation in the summer, but Riley gave Lucas a knowing look.

“Dessert?” Riley said getting up.

“Finally, I need to see what Riley has made for dessert,” Zay said jumping up and down like a little boy getting a present for his birthday. 

“You can have dessert Zay,” she said looking at him. “If you clear the table.”

Lucas laughed when he heard her request but Zay jump up like he had ants in his pants and rushed around picking up everyone’s plates. He took them to the kitchen and cleared them and put them in the sink before going back and clearing off the empty plates of food. When he was done he grabbed the dessert plates and forks and rushed back to the table.

“I wish you were that fast when we played football in peewees,” Lucas said looking back at her and smiling. “I’ll go get the cake.”

“I’ll grab the cake knife and the ice cream,” she said.

“Oh god there’s ice cream,” Zay said as they left the room.

Riley came back first setting down the ice cream she had made the day before, trying to keep Zay’s hands off the tub. Lucas walked in carefully, setting down the cake she had made so carefully, making sure to have a printout of the sonogram on the top, with the words Welcome to the World Baby Friar. Everyone looked at the cake trying to see what was on it but before they could read the writing Zay swiped his finger across the words with his finger and put it in his mouth.

“Oh for crying out loud Zay, you ruined it,” Riley said looking at him in disbelief. 

“Riles why is there a picture on the cake,” Maya asked looking at her.

“It’s the  12 th week sonogram of the baby,” Riley blurted out still angry with Zay.

The room had gone silent before anyone else moved or said a word. Everyone looked at her as she tried to salvage the part of the cake that Zay had touched, she gave up trying not to cry at losing this important moment because she had been stupid enough to have a cake in front of Zay.

“My baby is having a baby,” her father said pulling her out of her sad thoughts reminding her of what she had said. The room became lively with everyone saying congratulations and hugging the couple, Zay looked at her guiltily when it was his turn to hug her.

“I’m sorry Riley, I should have controlled myself,” he said before hugging her. “Congrats my man,” he said to Lucas. 

Everyone ate the cake and ice cream talking about the baby and names they should think about, if it’s a boy, or if it’s a girl. 

“I get godmother,” Maya said but Riley shook her head.

“You’re already the great aunt, I want Iz and Farkle to be godparents, I want them to be as much a part of this family as you are,” Riley said, Maya fake pouted before turning to the genius couple.

“Welcome to the family,” Maya said making Riley smile.

Lucas pulled her close and kissed her temple, she turned and smiled back at him and held him close as he put his hand on her growing belly.

When everyone had left, and they were alone together Lucas pulled Riley onto the terrace and kissed her under the stars and the moon even though they were covered by clouds, the skyline was lit up around them .

“That was some night,” he said pulling her close.

“Yeah who would’ve thought that Zay couldn’t restrain himself around anything sweet, I should have known better,” she said to him making him smile.

“Well we did know better but he should have held himself back.”

“Yeah right I doubt that’s even possible.”

“You’re right, next time let’s just give him his own cake.”

“Even that wouldn’t hold him back, but I’m glad we have a family like this quirks and all, it makes it more interesting and fun.”

They stood there for a couple of more minutes when all of a sudden snow began to fall around them. White Christmases were rare in the city, so even Lucas thought of it as a little blessing for the both of them.

“Come on I promised you a bubble bath,” he said smiling at her. “I brought strawberry cheesecake bubble bath.”

“Oh I want strawberry cheesecake,” she said to him and he couldn’t help but smile, lately she would get cravings from just smelling anything, the bubble bath was the latest, she had sniffed him two nights before and automatically wanted chocolate almonds. 

“I remember seeing one in the fridge, but that’s if Zay didn’t eat it.”

They rummaged through the fridge to find the slice he had brought for her from Junior’s, she loved their cheesecake but she couldn’t replicate the flavor so every once and a while Lucas brought her a slice.

“Come on let’s eat this in the tub, well you’ll eat it I’ll rub your feet,” he said taking her hand and pulling her upstairs. 

“Thank you for the cheesecake, and for dealing with my crazy cravings, they’ve been coming out of nowhere lately. I guess the baby is starting to get hungry.”

“I’ll do anything for you, now strip while I fill up the tub.”

She did as she was told, making sure that the dress fell to the floor, she stepped out of it and her shoes. Lucas smiled as he looked at her body as it changed to  accommodate the life she had growing inside of her. To him she still looked sexy but now she was also the cutest mother to be in the world. 

“Come on into the bath you go.”

He watched her as she stepped in and lowered herself, he hadn’t realized that he had been watching her like that since they met. She was the sun to his moon, and they worked together to make each other’s world go round. He felt nothing but joy for his life and he loved her for bringing it to him.


	16. Epilogue, Eight and a Half-Months Later

Riley was angry, the baby was two weeks late and she felt huge as she watched her best friend walk around with her small waist .

“I don’t like you right now,” she said to Maya. 

“Riley, you know what I said to you,” Lucas scolded her.

“But she’s so skinny and I feel like a cow, and all I want is for the baby to come out, Lucas why won’t the baby come out?”

“The doctor said the baby was okay, stop worrying.”

“Yeah Riles stop worrying,” Maya said trying to defuse the situation but Josh just looked worried at what was going to happen next.

“Maya don’t antagonize the pregnant woman,” he said to his wife. “I ate something earlier and she hit me with the broom because it was hers.”

Lucas looked at Riley like she had gone off the deep end, “My wife is crazy, I’m pretty sure she gets it from her mother.”

“Lucas,” Riley said shocked at what he was saying. “You know what forget it, I need to go pee.”

Riley got up and made it half way to the bathroom before she felt a slight pressure on her back, the pain had been coming on and off for over two hours and it was irritating her. All of a sudden her legs were soaked and there was liquid on the floor. 

“Oh god,” she said out loud.

Lucas rushed over to see if she was okay only to slip on the floor and land on his butt. 

“Lucas my water just broke,” she said in disbelief because she still had to pee, and now she wanted a shower.

“Okay I got this,” he said before jumping into his baby incoming mode. He rushed towards the closet and grabbed her go bag,  and then rushed and grabbed his keys Josh not that far behind as he called her parents. The two men walked out of the penthouse without her and she was the one having the baby.

“They left,” Maya said in disbelief. “How could they do that?”

“Don’t worry about them and come help me get upstairs, I need a shower and a change of clothes,” Riley answered. “They’ll come back in a few minutes when they remember they forgot the pregnant woman.”

“Okay,” Maya said helping her up the stairs. “Riles why are you so calm?”

“Well Lucas, has been running drills through his head since the doctor put me on bed rest, I’ve been watching him, but he never took me with him on any of these drills, so I figured that by the time he gets to the hospital and back my legs will be clean.”

“You two are so adorable you know that.”

“Yes I do.”

Riley got into the shower rubbing her belly every time a contraction came trying to soothe the baby, but also trying to soothe herself. When she got out Maya was waiting with a dress and a  pair of flip flops ready. When they got back to the living room Riley sat down and waited as Maya grabbed them some snacks. Riley looked at her phone and saw that it had been twenty minutes.

“In 5. 4. 3. 2. 1,” she counted before the door swung open revealing a distraught Lucas. “What took you so long to realize I wasn’t there?”

“The habit of doing this on my own, I guess I wasn’t thinking come on let’s go,” he said slowly leading her out the door.

* * *

The labor lasted another six hours, the baby had had enough of Mommy time and rushed out to meet the world. Little Charlotte Abigail was born just before midnight, to a tired Riley and an excited Lucas. Their family and friends around them, the couple couldn’t help but smile at the little angel that had brought them together.

Her parents looked at their grandchild smiling, “I never thought I could love someone so much,” her father said.

“What?” her mother said looking between her kids and her husband.

“Don’t worry mom, it’s just his thing, he attaches himself to the first baby he sees, it’s normal,” Auggie said looking at his baby niece. “She’s cute though, so we can babysit some days… what am I saying she’s adorable, look at those green eyes.”

Her mother laughed but Riley loved the fact they accepted her and Lucas’ child so quickly. Her father was still screaming bloody murder during her labor, they had to kick him out of the delivery room.

“Lucas, take good care of her, or so help me I’ll kick your…”

“Daddy, language,” Riley said stopping him.

“Sorry Riley,” he said looking down.

Lucas watched them smiling the whole time, “Family time is so much fun,” he said.

“Whatever happens next it’s not my fault,” she told him.

“No it’s not because I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said.

“Family forever,” Riley said to Lucas.

“Forever and ever,” he said kissing his wife.


End file.
